EDITED  BY 

Eobert  a.  WoQtis 


THE  CITY  WILDERNESS.  A  Settlement  Study. 
South  End,  Boston.  By  Residents  and  Associates  of  the 
South  End  House.     With  colored  Maps.     lamo,  J1.50, 

AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS.  A  Settlement  Study. 
North  and  West  Ends,  Boston.  By  Residents  and 
Associates  of  the  South  End  House.  x2mo,  $1.50,  net. 
Postage  extra. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


AMERICANS    IN 


/ 

A  SETTLEMENT  STUDY 

BY 

RESIDENTS   AND  ASSOCIATES   OF  THE 
SOUTH   END   HOUSE 

EDITED   BY 

ROBERT  A.  WOODS 

HEAD    OF   THE /house 

NORTH  AND  WEST  ENDS 
BOSTON 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

(Clje  0i\jeri9itie  |^re?3^,  Cambdboe 

1903 


PROCESS  /^0^ 


COPYRIGHT,  1902,  BY  ROBERT  A.  WOODS 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


Published  December^  rgoz 


St 


S. 


PREFACE 


Y"  The  study  of  North  and  West  End  life  which 

?  -'^'V^  makes  up  the  present  volume  had  its  beginning 
\  !k'     ^^  ^^  investigation  of  South  End  conditions,  the 
^^      results  of  which  were  published  four  years  ago  in 
the  book  "  The  City  Wilderness."     It  was  found 
that  much  valuable  material  sought  out  for  the 
^      South  End  study  was  equally  available  for  the 
'kJ     North  and  West  Ends.     The  direct  advantage  of 
i     such   a   presentment   has   been   apparent   in   the 
'     South  End.     The  task  of  each  agency  for  local 
""^     improvement  has  been  made  more  distinct.      By 
laying  out   the  large  exhaustive  measure  of   the 
local  community's  possibilities  and  needs,  a  stronger 
^.^-•::dlnion  of   forccs  has   been  secured.     It  was   felt 
^v^    that  a  similar  study  of  the  North  and  West  Ends 
::;-  would  be  of  service  to  the  scheme  of  social  im- 
provement in  those  districts. 

In  the  practical  work  of  the  South  End  House, 

as  its  plan  broadens,  it  is  found  essential  that  the 

forces  existing  in  these  other  two  downtown  work- 

^      insr-class  districts  should  be  understood  and,  so  far 

T  . 


IV  PREFACE 

as  possible,  dealt  with.  There  is  a  gradual  drift 
of  population,  including  all  the  different  nationali- 
ties, from  the  northern  to  the  southern  border  of 
the  business  section  of  the  city.  In  its  local  work, 
the  House  is  constantly  compelled  to  take  account 
of  this  movement  of  population  and  the  causes 
which  produce  it.  In  certain  large  undertakings 
toward  social  improvement,  covering  the  city  in 
their  scope,  but  having  special  concern  for  the 
three  downtown  tenement-house  sections,  residents 
of  the  House  have  been  called  into  service.  This 
service  is  partly  in  connection  with  voluntary  or- 
ganizations and  partly  under  the  municipality. 
Certain  special  enactments,  in  the  enforcement  of 
which  the  residents  of  the  House  are  much  in- 
terested, have  an  almost  exclusive  bearing  upon 
these  three  districts.  In  efforts  toward  the  further 
development  of  such  legislation,  knowledge  of  the 
facts  as  found  in  all  three  districts  is  needed  by 
the  advocate  of  the  cause  of  any  one  of  them. 
A  peculiar  stimulus  to  the  present  investigation 
has  come  through  the  hindrance  offered  at  City 
Hall  by  a  certain  mysterious  political  power  in 
the  West  End  to  a  great  project  of  popular  bet- 
terment for  which  the  residents  of  the  South  End 
House,  among  others,  have  long  worked  and  will 
continue  to  work  until  its  success  is  assured. 


PREFACE  V 

The  South  End  study  had  its  best  use,  perhaps, 
in  aiding  thoughtful  people  throughout  Boston  and 
its  suburbs  to  discern  the  vital  relation  which 
exists  between  that  district  and  the  local  commu- 
nities in  which  the  prosperous  classes  reside.  It 
is  hoped  that  the  present  volume  may  further  aid  in 
making  clear  the  responsibilities  in  which  resource- 
ful citizens  stand  for  the  great  immigrant  popula- 
tions which  are  close  at  the  city's  heart. 

In  Boston,  as  in  other  large  cities,  municipal 
and  social  reform  are  much  embarrassed  by  the 
lack  of  any  kindling  realization,  even  in  the  minds 
of  sagacious,  disinterested  persons,  of  the  actual, 
present-day  truth  with  regard  to  the  urban  com- 
munity in  the  thick  of  which  the  drama  of  their 
active  life  is  set.  The  indifference  of  the  so-called 
good  citizen  is  largely  because  his  best  effort  to 
produce  a  mental  picture  of  his  city  in  its  essential 
human  aspects  results  in  something  altogether 
vague,  scattered,  out-of-date.  Many  of  the  efforts 
toward  better  things  reflect  this  lack  of  mental 
furnishing  in  being  piecemeal,  casual  and  beside 
the  mark. 

The  purpose  of  this  volume,  as  of  its  predeces- 
sor, is  to  contribute  toward  building  up  a  contem- 
porary conception  of  the  city,  as  the  groundwork 
of  a  type  of  municipal   and   social   improvement 


VI  PREFACE 

which  shall  be  accurate  in  its  adaptation  to  de- 
tailed facts  and  statesmanlike  in  its  grasp  of  large 
forces  and  total  situations.  It  seems  to  the  writers 
that  such  a  conception  may  best  be  gained  by  the 
analysis  of  affairs  in  one  after  another  of  the 
congested  districts  of  the  city,  presenting  those 
districts  in  their  measure  of  separateness  and  in- 
dividuality as  against  the  remainder  of  the  city, 
while  showing,  not  in  the  language  of  exhortation 
but  in  terms  of  ascertained  reality,  the  complex 
connections  which  bring  these  districts  and  the  other 
sections  of  the  city  into  a  living  ensemble. 

The  writers  have,  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
had  long  familiarity  with  persons  and  affairs  in 
the  North  and  West  Ends.  The  present  study 
has  been  progressing  during  the  time  since  the 
volume  dealing  with  the  South  End  was  issued. 
Of  course  the  writers  do  not  have  so  intimate  a 
knowledge  of  the  life  of  these  districts  as  of  the 
section  of  the  city  in  which  most  of  them  have  for 
years  lived  and  worked ;  but  some  of  them  have  re- 
sided during  considerable  periods  amid  the  situa- 
tion covered  by  the  present  investigation.  One 
contributor,  Miss  Beale,  has  for  some  ten  years 
had  unusual  opportunities  of  close  acquaintance 
with  the  inner  life  of  the  Jewish  and  Italian 
colonies. 


PREFACE  VU 

The  resources  of  observation  and  experience 
possessed  by  many  whose  field  of  work  lies  largely 
or  entirely  in  these  districts  have  been  freely 
placed  at  our  service,  and  have  been  largely  drawn 
upon.  To  all  the  local  agents  of  the  Associated 
Charities,  and  to  all  the  leading  philanthropic 
workers  in  both  districts,  we  are  much  indebted. 
The  public  school  teachers,  particularly  Mr.  L.  H. 
Button  and  Miss  Ellen  Sawtelle,  have  done  much 
to  forward  one  of  the  most  important  parts  of  our 
inquiry.  We  have  had  much  assistance  from 
clergymen  and  other  church  workers ;  especially 
we  wish  to  thank  the  Rev.  Reuben  Kidner,  of  St. 
Andrew's  Church,  for  his  constant  aid  and  encour- 
agement. For  many  valuable  suggestions  as  to  the 
social  history  of  the  North  End,  we  are  indebted  to 
the  late  Henry  B.  Mackintosh,  son  of  Peter  Mackin- 
tosh, master  of  the  Hancock  School  in  the  early 
part  of  the  last  century.  The  records  and  special 
knowledge  of  various  public  officials  and  bureaus 
have  been  put  at  our  service,  —  the  Police  Depart- 
ment at  the  central  office  and  the  local  stations, 
the  Board  of  Health,  the  Board  of  Assessors,  the 
State  Factory  Inspectors,  the  State  Bureau  of  Sta- 
tistics of  Labor,  the  Inspector  of  Immigration  for 
Boston. 

The  editor  has  again  had  the  general  assistance 


Vlll  PREFACE 

of  his  colleague  in  tlie  direction  of  the  South  End 
House,  Mr.  William  I.  Cole.  Mrs.  William  L. 
Rutan,  an  associate  in  the  work  of  the  settlement 
during  the  past  ten  years,  beside  making  her  con- 
tributions to  the  text,  has  assisted  with  the  proof- 
reading and  prepared  the  index.  Several  residents 
of  the  House  have  helped  with  the  collection  of 
statistics  and  other  data  for  some  of  the  chapters, 
chiefly  Messrs.  Fred  E.  Haynes,  Rufus  E.  Miles, 
Roswell  F.  Phelps  and  Everett  W.  Goodhue. 

While  the  study  was  in  its  early  stages  the 
writers  received  valuable  suggestions  from  two 
books,  both  written  by  men  now  or  formerly  con- 
nected with  Toynbee  Hall  and  therefore  from  a 
point  of  view  particularly  suited  to  the  present 
purpose.  These  books  are  "  Italy  To-Day,"  by 
Bolton  King  and  Thomas  Okey  (Scribners),  and 
"  The  Jew  in  London,"  by  C.  Russell  and  H.  S. 
Lewis  (Crowell). 

The  double-page  maps,  which  are  brought  down 
to  the  time  of  publication,  are  intended  accurately 
to  indicate  preponderating  conditions  in  each  block. 
In  the  nationality  map,  where  there  is  a  double 
strip  of  color,  it  is  to  be  understood  that  no  single 
nationality  is  in  a  majority  in  the  block,  but  that 
two  nationalities  are  represented  in  proportions  of 
from  thirty  to  fifty  per  cent.  each.     In  the  map 


PREFACE  IX 

showing  industrial  grades,  a  type  of  block  is  shown 
here  which  does  not  exist  at  the  South  End,  —  one 
in  which  the  unskilled  and  the  clerks  are  somewhat 
equally  represented,  while  skilled  workmen  are 
hardly  found.  This  state  of  things,  which  goes  with 
the  Jewish  tendency  to  leap  over  the  skilled  labor 
stage  in  their  haste  to  become  shopkeepers,  is 
marked  by  a  new  mixed  color.  In  preparing  the 
maps,  the  same  detailed  methods  have  been  fol- 
lowed as  those  explained  in  the  preface  of  "  The 
City  Wilderness."  The  district  maps  cover  nearly 
the  whole  of  two  wards  and  a  small  portion  of  a 
third.  The  North  End  is  substantially  identical 
with  Ward  6,  so  far  as  population  is  concerned. 
The  West  End  maps  cover  practically  all  of  Ward 
8,  with  a  narrow  strip  of  Ward  11. 

In  a  few  instances  reference  is  made  to  "  The 
City  Wilderness  "  for  a  somewhat  fuller  treatment 
of  topics  which  naturally  called  for  greater  em- 
phasis in  that  volume  than  in  this.  In  one  or 
two  ^ases  some  repetition  seemed  advisable.  The 
two  books  are  essentially  independent.  It  is  the 
earnest  hope  of  the  writers,  however,  having  pro- 
ceeded thus  far,  that  these  may  be  fitted  together 
with  the  results  of  further  investigations  into  a 
comprehensive  exposition  of  social  conditions  in 
Boston  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.  Metes  and  Bounds 1 

Robert  A.  Woods. 

II.   Before  the  Invasion 11 

Elizabeth  Y.  Rutan. 

III.  The  Invading  Host 40 

Frederick  A.  Bush^e. 

IV.  City  and  Slum 71 

Edward  H.  Chandler. 

V.  Livelihood 104 

Robert  A.  Woods. 

VI.  Traffic  in  Citizenship 147 

Robert  A.  Woods. 

VII.  Law  and  Order 190 

William  I.  Cole. 

VIII.   Life's  Amenities .  224 

Jessie  Fremont  Beale  and  Anne  Withington. 
IX.   Two  Ancient  Faiths  .        .  ....  254 

WiUiam  I.  Cole. 
X.  The  Child  of  the  Stranger        ....  289 

Caroline  S.  Atherton  and  Elizabeth  Y.  Rutan. 

XI.  Community  of  Interest 321 

William  I.  Cole  and  Ruf  us  E.  Miles. 
XII.  Assimilation:  A  Two-Edged  Swokd    .        .        .  356 
Robert  A.  Woods. 


MAPS 


FA6B 

I.  Boston  in  Outline 2 

II.  Boston,  1722 24 

III.  Nationalities  in  the  North  End         .        .        .40 
Coinpiled  by  Frederick  A.  Bush^e  and  Rufus  E. 
Miles. 
rV.  Nationalities  in  the  West  End  .         .        .        .46 
Compiled  by  Frederick  A.  Bush^e  and  Rufus  E. 
Miles. 
V.  Buildings  in  the  North  End        .        .        .        .70 
Compiled  by  Frederick  A.  Bush^e  and  Roswell  F. 
Phelps. 

VI.  Buildings  in  the  West  End 76 

Compiled  by  Frederick  A.  Bushde  and  Roswell  F. 
Phelps. 
VII.  A  Type  of  Tenement-House  Improvement        .    90 
VIII.  Industrial  Grades  in  the  North  End       .        .  130 
Compiled  by  Rufus  E.  Miles  and  Robert  A.  Woods. 
IX.  Industrial  Grades  in  the  West  End  .        .        .  136 
Compiled  by  Rufus  E.  Miles  and  Robert  A.  Woods. 
X.  Institutions  in  the  North  End  ....  288 

Compiled  by  William  I.  Cole. 
XI.  Institutions  in  the  West  End     ....  320 
Compiled  by  William  I.  Cole. 


AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 


CHAPTER  I 

METES    AND   BOUNDS 


From  Boston  Common  two  blocks  to  the  north 
begins  a  wedge-shaped  open  space,  in  whose  extreme 
angle  commercial  respectability  fades  away  into 
freak  shows,  burlesque  theatres,  palm  gardens,  and 
the  like.  ScoUay  Square  has  so  many  radiating 
outlets  to  all  corners  of  heaven  that  it  might  have 
afforded  the  original  suggestion  of  Boston's  some- 
what outworn  municipal  epithet.  One  street  dips 
and  then  runs  on  as  straight  as  these  old  streets 
ever  run,  into  the  heart  of  the  North  End. 
Another,  having  begun  its  winding  course  on  the 
city  side  among  great  office  buildings,  loses  itself  in 
the  square,  but  takes  up  the  thread  again  at  an  un- 
expected point  among  the  dubious  resorts,  as  a  West 
End  thoroughfare.  A  third  street  is  one  of  the 
approaches  to  the  North  Union  Station.  The 
station,  with  its  broad  stretch  of  tracks  and  the 


2  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

stream  of  traffic  to  and  from  it,  all  flanked  by 
thoroiigMares  to  Charlestown  and  East  Cambridge, 
sets  off  the  North  and  West  Ends  distinctly 
from  each  other.  At  night,  however,  after  the 
streets  leading  to  the  station  become  comparatively 
deserted,  the  districts  are  united  by  two  steady 
processions  jostling  each  other  as  they  slowly  move 
back  and  forth,  —  shoppers,  theatre-goers,  caUers, 
strollers. 

The  North  End  is  less  than  half  a  mile  in  any 
of  its  dimensions.  It  is  a  "tight  little  island," 
hemmed  in  by  continuous  and  ever-encroaching 
currents  of  commercial  activity.  The  station 
thoroughfares  lead  to  the  markets.  The  markets 
extend  to  the  docks.  The  docks  reach  around 
from  the  markets  to  the  railroads  again. 

The  West  End,  beginning  at  the  North  Station, 
—  with  whose  traffic  it  is  more  concerned  than  the 
North  End,  —  has  another  curving  water  front  as 
a  boundary.  On  the  south.  Beacon  Hill  makes 
an  effectual  barrier.  The  West  End  population 
is  allowed,  however,  to  take  possession  of  the  bleak 
northeast  slope.  It  is  also  beginning  to  make  its 
way  by  force  around  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  either 
side. 

The  interior  frame  of  the  North  End  is  that  of 
one  main  highway  to  the  East  Boston  ferry,  with 


ROXBURY 


OUTLINE  MAP  OF  BOSTON 

OMITTING  SUBUEBjU^  DISTRICTS 


METES  AND  BOUNDS  3 

a  tributary  street  running  on  either  side  of  it. 
The  thoroughfare,  Hanover  Street,  is  cosmopolitan. 
Salem  Street,  toward  the  water,  selected  as  a  place 
of  peaceful  abode  by  Hebraist  Puritans,  is  now,  in 
the  whirligig  of  time,  turned  over  to  the  Hebrews 
themselves.  North  Street,  on  the  side  toward  the 
markets,  is,  as  it  were,  an  Alpine  pass  through  cold- 
storage  warehouses  into  "  Little  Italy."  These 
three  arteries  of  travel  open  the  way  to  a  network 
of  cross-streets,  passageways  and  blind  alleys. 

The  West  End  has  two  squares  serving  as 
ganglia  for  its  communication,  one  with  the  busi- 
ness section  of  the  city,  the  other  with  the  North 
Station.  Beyond  these  squares  go  thoroughfares 
converging  toward  the  West  Boston  Bridge  to 
Cambridgeport.  Most  of  the  streets  auxiliary  to 
these  are  not  so  narrow  nor  so  close  together  as  the 
corresponding  communicating  ways  of  the  North 
End.  The  situation  in  the  West  End  is  one  of 
contrasts,  —  places  as  dark  and  noisome  as  any  in 
the  North  End  ;  frequent  rows  of  houses  retaining 
an  air  of  comfort  and  respectability  such  as  has 
almost  wholly  passed  from  the  North  End.  Often 
these  contrasts  represent  the  degenerate  and  pro- 
gressive extremes  of  life  among  the  remnant  of 
the  former  possessors  of  both  districts,  the  Irish. 

The    North  and  West  Ends   do  not  have  the 


4  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

advantage  of  being  central  and  pivotal  in  their 
accessibility  to  tlie  whole  city,  as  the  South  End 
has.^  They  stand  curiously  aloof,  so  far  as 
social  contact  and  intercommunication  are  con- 
cerned. The  North  End,  shut  in  between  the  busi- 
ness section  and  the  water,  has  no  nearer  neigh- 
bor for  resident  population  —  excluding  the  West 
End  itself  —  than  Charlestown  and  East  Boston. 
The  West  End  is  almost  as  completely  isolated. 
It  touches  other  resident  population  only  at  the 
confines  of  the  Beacon  Hill  quarter ;  and  this  is 
the  one  point  where  any  of  the  struggling  people 
of  these  districts  have  the  semblance  of  neighborly 
contact  with  prosperous  and  responsible  Boston 
citizens.  As  the  inhabitants  of  this  part  of  the 
West  End  are  chiefly  negroes,  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  the  only  relation  resulting  from  the  propin- 
quity is  a  constrained  political  one,  and  mutually 
corrupting  at  that. 

Indeed,  as  so  often  happens,  contact  produces  a 
recoil,  —  the  black  belt  shuts  off  the  West  End 
from  view  to  a  considerable  extent.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  very  distinctness  of  the  North  End  as  a 
community  in  itself  constitutes  part  of  the  attrac- 
tion which  it  holds  for  the  imagination.  It  is  true, 
of  course,  that  the  history  of  the  West  End  as  a 

^  The  City  Wilderness,  p.  4. 


METES  AND  BOUNDS  5 

poor  district  is  somewhat  recent,  while  the  North 
End  has  for  generations  been  Boston's  classic  land 
of  poverty.  To  this  day,  though  other  parts  of 
the  city  can  show  worse  neighborhoods,  economi- 
cally and  morally,  it  is  difficult  for  the  elderly 
Boston  citizen  to  set  any  distressing  occurrence  as- 
sociated with  the  life  of  the  poor  in  other  scenes 
than  those  of  the  North  End. 

The  North  End  combines  in  curious  fashion  the 
atmosphere  belonging  to  distinct  foreign  colonies 
with  that  of  many  of  the  special  historic  associa- 
tions and  mementos  of  old  Boston.  Its  Revolu- 
tionary landmarks  make  it  a  source  of  pride  to  all 
intelligent  citizens  of  Boston.  There  are  few  days 
in  the  year  when  some  group  of  visitors  in  the  city 
do  not  find  their  way  to  these  interesting  spots. 
They  can  hardly  return  through  the  North  End 
throng  without  some  anxious  query  as  to  the  part 
which  the  most  recent  recruits  will  take  in  the 
American  people's  future  history.  Such  coming 
and  going  also  serves  to  give  the  immigrant  some 
intimation  of  the  better  standards  which  mark  the 
country  of  his  adoption. 

The  West  End  is  more  modern ;  and  being  so 
near  to  the  heart  of  the  city  contains  a  number 
of  the  institutions  that  are  inseparable  from  the 
movement  of  a  great  city's  life.     Some   of  these 


b  AMERICANS    IN  PBOCESS 

suggest  care  about  its  wreckage  and  tragedy, — 
the  Charity  Building,  the  Wayfarers'  Lodge,  several 
great  hospitals,  the  county  jail,  the  morgue.  The 
public  dignity  of  the  community  is  present  in  the 
State  House  and  the  Court  House,  both  of  which 
reach  back  to  the  edge  of  this  district.  Naturally 
these  different  institutions  bring  a  large  number 
of  responsible  citizens  back  and  forth  in  the  West 
End,  and  contribute  toward  the  existence  of  a 
human  touch  between  it  and  more  favored  parts 
of  the  city. 

Even  the  indifferent  among  the  rich  are  com- 
pelled on  occasion  to  have  a  glimpse  of  the  North 
and  West  End  Lazarus.  The  way  to  Europe,  if 
one  sail  from  Boston,  lies  through  the  North  End. 
The  way  to  the  North  Shore  and  its  summer 
charms  lies  through  the  West  End.  Before  em- 
barking on  train  or  ship,  with  all  their  wafting 
suggestion,  there  comes  to  many  that  challenge  of 
responsibility  for  the  common  good,  which  is  the 
very  life  of  democracy,  and  without  which,  as  recent 
solemn  warnings  have  assured  us,  our  great  cities 
will  rush  to  industrial  and  moral  disaster. 

This  feeling  of  responsibility,  so  far  as  Boston 
is  concerned,  has  to  a  large  extent  been  infused 
into  the  Boston  mind  as  the  result  of  half  a  century 
of  endeavor  directed  toward  meeting  the  needs  of 


METES  AND  BOUNDS  i 

the  particular  districts  of  the  city  which  are  under 
review  in  this  volume.  The  constant  change  and 
growth  of  the  problem  as  a  result  of  successive 
tidal  waves  of  immigration  has  made  it  impossible 
for  the  methods  of  the  past  to  keep  pace  with  the 
needs  wliich  they  sought  to  remedy.  Nevertheless, 
there  was  developed  in  these  districts,  before  the 
days  of  scientific  charity  or  preventive  philan- 
thropy, that  keen  social  compunction  out  of  whose 
very  failures  those  maturer  developments  have 
arisen. 

Fifteen  years  ago  the  organization  of  charity 
began  to  ripen  into  forms  of  action  designed  to 
shut  off  some  of  the  need  of  relief  in  the  indi- 
vidual and  family  life,  and  lift  the  people,  espe- 
cially the  young,  to  the  level  of  fair  opportunities 
of  industry  and  happiness.  But  a  final  over- 
whelming incursion  of  helpless,  inarticulate  for- 
eigners swept  in  upon  the  North  End,  and  in  less 
degree  upon  the  West  End,  necessarily  postponing 
the  larger  growth  of  personal  philanthropy,  and 
precipitating  sanitary,  industrial  and  moral  prob- 
lems so  threatening  that  it  became  necessary  to 
call  upon  the  State  for  new  and  unprecedented 
forms  of  legislative  action. 

The  crowding  of  buildings  upon  land,  and  of 
human  beings  into  buildings,  became  extreme  and 


8  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

unendurable.  There  was  much  determined  action 
on  the  part  of  the  Board  of  Health,  under  the 
reassuring  spur  of  an  even  more  determined  pub- 
lic sentiment.  It  was  found,  however,  that  the 
powers  of  the  Board  were  insufficient.  In  London, 
the  sanitary  authorities  had  been  granted  power 
not  merely  to  vacate  but  to  destroy  objectionable 
habitations,  and  certain  great  single  areas  had 
been  demolished.  New  York  had,  so  far  as  legis- 
lation goes,  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  England, 
but  there  had  been  as  yet  no  satisfactory  enforce- 
ment of  the  law.  In  Boston  this  most  advanced 
form  of  legislation  against  the  slum  has  for  five 
years  now  been  enforced  with  increasing  grasp  and 
effectiveness. 

The  new  immigrant  population  introduced  a 
system  of  home  industry  tending  quickly  to  degrade 
family  life  and  to  depress  greatly  the  wage  stan- 
dard of  our  people.  Through  adequate  legislation, 
systematically  administered,  Boston  has  conducted 
an  original  experiment  of  the  highest  importance 
to  the  whole  civilized  world,  resulting  in  the  practi- 
cal abolition  of  that  worst  pest  of  city  industry, 
the  sweating  system. 

At  the  same  time,  without  special  legislation, 
but  by  the  direct  pressure  of  public  sentiment 
upon  the  police  authorities,  a  telling  blow  has  been 


METES  AND  BOUNDS  9 

dealt  at  the  different  established  headquarters  o£ 
those  degrading  forms  of  prostitution  which,  in 
New  York  particularly,  have  grown  to  be  the  most 
serious  threat  of  congested  tenement  life. 

By  these  searching  reforms  directed  almost  ex- 
clusively at  conditions  in  the  North  and  West 
Ends,  the  two  districts  have  had  some  of  the  most 
unyielding  factors  eliminated  bodily  from  their 
social  equation.  As  a  result,  voluntary  public 
service,  through  which  the  whole  of  both  districts 
is  kept  under  general  moral  surveillance  and,  in 
lesser  degree,  under  influences  of  a  personally 
inspiring  and  upbuilding  sort,  finds  itself  in  a 
wholly  new  stage  of  incentive  and  opportunity. 
It  is  an  even  greater  source  of  encouragement  that 
the  developments  of  private  philanthropy  seem 
likely  to  be  far  outdistanced  by  the  ministry  of 
social  opportunity  on  the  part  of  the  municipality. 

The  growth  of  communities  of  Continental 
immigrants  in  Boston  was  at  first  of  the  nature 
of  a  calamity  to  the  city.  The  main  action  of  the 
community  as  a  whole  was  brought  to  bear,  and 
the  calamitous  stage  was  erelong  safely  passed. 
Boston  has  contrived  to  erect  dikes  against  its 
quota  of  the  deluge  of  tenement-house  evils  with 
which  New  York  and,  in  a  different  way,  Chicago 
are  still    overwhelmed.       Some   years    must    still 


10  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

elapse  before  the  two  great  metropolitan  cities, 
witli  their  appalling  difficulties,  shall  have  come 
into  a  calm  and  steady  era  of  reconstruction  such 
as  Boston  has  already  reached.  Meanwhile,  the 
situation  outlined  in  these  chapters  may  more  or 
less  closely  represent  the  problem  of  alien  life 
which  confronts  the  average  large  city  in  the 
United  States.  It  is  true  that  no  city  in  the  coun- 
try has  the  recuperative  resources,  in  proportion 
to  its  size,  that  are  available  in  the  matured  com- 
munity existence  of  Boston.  It  is,  however,  one 
of  the  chief  distinctions  of  present-day  American 
life  in  general  that  there  is  so  great  a  variety  of 
effort,  municipal,  commercial,  philanthropic,  for 
the  advancement  of  general  human  weU-being 
among  all  our  urban  populations. 


CHAPTER  II 
BEFORE   THE   INVASION 

Until  the  year  1630,  the  tract  of  New  Eng- 
land soil  that  was  to  become  the  town  of  Boston 
lay  a  rough  and  almost  uncultivated  stretch  of 
perhaps  six  hundred  acres,  uninhabited  save  for 
a  solitary  English  farmer  whose  name  is  pre- 
served at  the  northern  and  southern  extremes 
of  his  ancient  squatter's  claim  in  Blackstone 
Street  and  Blackstone  Square.  The  territory 
was  known  by  the  Indians  as  Shawmut,  and  was 
in  form  a  peninsula,  connected  with  the  main- 
land upon  the  south  by  a  narrow  neck.  With 
broken,  irregular  outline,  it  extended  into  the 
harbor  in  a  general  northerly  direction,  terminating 
at  the  northeast  and  northwest  in  promontories  at 
the  points  where  the  Charles  and  the  Mystic 
empty  into  the  bay.  The  fields  sloping  back  from 
these  promontories  were  the  sections  known  to-day 
as  the  North  and  West  Ends  of  Boston,  and  were 
separated  at  that  time  by  a  deep  tidal  inlet,  covered 
with  water  at  high  tide,  but  at  ebb  presenting  a 


12  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

dreary  surface  of  mud  flats,  in  extent  about  equal 
to  the  present  Boston  Common. 

These  extremes  of  the  city  are  often  referred 
to  as  its  oldest  parts.  In  reality  the  western  pas- 
tures lay  almost  untouched  for  a  century,  while 
the  eastern  extremity  as  a  building  site  was  only 
the  second  thought  of  the  colonists.  The  latter 
lay  due  north  from  the  narrow  neck,  directly  across 
the  bay  from  Charlestown.  In  a  letter  sent  back 
to  England  by  a  young  girl,  one  of  the  first  boat- 
load of  immigrants  to  land  at  Shawmut,  is  a  de- 
scription of  the  locality.  "  A  place  very  uneven," 
Ann  Pollard  writes,  "  abounding  in  small  hollows 
and  swamps  covered  with  blueberries  and  other 
low  bushes."  Between  the  low  northern  tract, 
which  these  words  seem  to  fit,  and  the  higher 
lands  to  the  south  lay  an  almost  impassable  marsh, 
now  marked  by  Blackstone  Street,  and  it  is  to  this 
feature  that  the  district  owes  its  earliest  name, 
"  The  Island  of  North  Boston."  Over  the  marsh's 
narrowest  breadth,  a  distance  of  about  eight  hun- 
dred feet,  the  waters  of  the  inlet  upon  the  west 
and  those  of  a  deep  indentation  known  as  the 
Great  Cove  upon  the  east  mingled  at  high  tide 
and  cut  off  the  land  to  the  north  from  the  main 
body  of  the  peninsula.  Except  for  an  elevation 
of   fifty  feet  close  by  the  shore,  now  known  as 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  13 

Copp's  Hill,  upon  which  the  girl  may  have  stood 
as  she  framed  her  description,  Shawmut's  north- 
ern acres  were  low  and  would  easily  come  within 
her  range.  Looking  beyond  them  to  the  south 
across  the  waters  of  the  Great  Cove  on  her  left, 
she  might  see  Fort  Hill,  to-day  but  a  memory 
brought  to  mind  by  the  name  Fort  Hill  Square. 
Beyond  the  waters  of  the  tidal  inlet  on  her  right, 
soon  to  be  transformed  into  the  Mill  Pond,  rose 
the  three  Ions:  since  diminished  heads  of  Beacon 
Hill,  the  tri-mountain  from  which  Boston  gained 
her  second  name,  preserved  in  Tremont  Street. 

The  company  of  English  Puritans  who  pur- 
chased the  territory  just  described  landed  at  a 
point  on  the  coast  near  the  present  Charles  Kiver 
Bridge  in  the  fall  of  1630,  and  crossed  the  marsh, 
establishing  their  first  homes  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Spring  Lane.  For  a  year  or  more,  the  chief 
business  of  their  town  government  was  the  allot- 
ment of  land.  Only  a  very  few  assignments  were 
made  in  the  western  pastures,  but  in  consequence 
of  the  business  possibilities  suggested  by  the  harbor 
frontage,  shore  allotments  in  the  northern  acres 
soon  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  desirable.  Al- 
though the  low  interior  of  the  district  probably 
did  not  appeal  to  the  settlers  at  once  as  a  site  for 
homes,  it  was  not  long  before  its  advantages  were 


14  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

discovered.  Its  nearness  to  what  soon  showed  them- 
selves to  be  future  business  parts  of  the  town,  the 
coast  line  and  Dock  Square,  gradually  caused  it  to 
find  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  artisans,  with  their 
long  hours  of  labor  and  their  frequent  habit  of 
combining  home  and  shop.  Between  the  first 
place  of  settlement  and  the  point  upon  the  coast 
nearest  the  opposite  village  of  Charlestown  a  track 
was  naturally  worn  to  the  ferry,  and  along  this 
road  and  to  either  side  of  it  sprang  up  the  humble 
homes  of  cobbler,  carpenter,  candle-maker,  cooper, 
and  biscuit  baker,  —  low  cottages  with  shops  at- 
tached, and  in  many  cases  with  land  at  the  back 
sloping  down  to  a  wharf.  In  a  few  years  the  main 
outlines  of  the  old  North  End  were  those  that 
may  be  seen  to-day,  a  district  but  three  streets 
wide,  —  Hanover,  Salem,  and  North  streets,  — 
with  Hanover  Street,  then  as  now,  the  middle  and 
main  thoroughfare,  "  The  Way  leading  to  the 
Ferry."  Salem  and  North  streets  followed  the 
coast  line;  and  east  and  west  from  the  highway 
ran  connecting  lanes,  their  crooked  outlines,  which 
more  than  two  hundred  years  of  travel  have  not 
made  straight,  taking  shape  according  to  the 
caprice  of  the  home-builders. 

The  first  poor  cottages  that  lined  these  quiet, 
country  roads  were  no   proof  of  the  energy  and 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  15 

ingenuity  of  their  owners.  The  colony's  scanty 
records  afford  occasional  impressive  glimpses  of 
the  determination  that  made  the  hamlet  a  town, 
and  many  of  the  efforts  most  important  to  the 
general  welfare  centred  at  the  North  End.  A 
nineteenth  century  historian  has  exclaimed  con- 
cerning Boston,  "  No  other  great  city  of  the  world 
has  undergone  such  changes  at  the  hands  of  man ; 
not  a  trace  of  its  original  outline  remains."  The 
beginning  of  this  remarkable  transformation  may 
be  traced  to  the  measures  taken  to  supply  the 
early  demand  for  mill  facilities.  Across  the  tidal 
inlet  that  separated  the  North  End  from  the 
remote  western  pastures  ran  a  ridge  of  land  where 
Causeway  Street  now  lies,  that  had  been  used  by 
the  Indians  as  a  footpath  over  the  flats.  This 
ridge  suggested  a  dam  with  the  possibilities  of  water- 
power,  and  in  a  few  years  from  the  time  of  settle- 
ment the  acres  of  useless,  offensive  flats  had  been 
transformed  into  a  Mill  Pond  supplying  power  for 
tidal  grist-mills,  for  years  the  chief  mills  of  the 
town.  A  company  of  men  who  soon  leased  the 
Mill  Pond  privileges  drained  the  marsh,  digging  a 
deep  trench  at  the  narrowest  point  and  bridging 
it.  The  canal  thus  formed  connected  the  Mill 
Pond  and  the  Great  Cove,  and  was  known  for  a 
century  and  a  half  as  the  Mill  Creek. 


16  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Such  changes  as  these,  rapidly  increasing  as  they 
did  both  the  accessibility  and  the  business  impor- 
tance of  the  North  End,  resulted  in  the  district's 
becoming  before  the  end  of  the  century  the  most 
densely  populated  part  of  the  town,  —  a  charac- 
ter it  has  never  lost.  In  the  burying-ground  on 
Copp's  Hill  it  is  said  that  more  than  half  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  town  during  its  first  century 
were  buried.  That  the  population  was  fairly 
prosperous  as  well  as  numerous  may  be  inferred 
from  the  building  of  the  Second  Church  in  1650, 
the  meeting-house  of  the  famous  Mathers  on  North 
Square.  As  the  North  End  grew,  this  square  be- 
came the  centre  of  the  district,  both  as  a  residen- 
tial quarter  and  a  place  of  public  assembly.  The 
town  pump  was  there,  and  one  of  the  earliest  mar- 
ket-places, and  after  the  building  of  the  church 
the  residences  of  the  most  influential  parishioners 
clustered  about  it  or  were  built  in  the  adjoining 
streets.  The  successive  generations  of  Mathers 
all  lived  near  the  church,  and  men  like  Holyoke, 
the  soap-boiler,  father  of  the  future  Harvard  pre- 
sident, plied  their  trades  in  the  cottages  round 
about. 

For  the  first  half  century,  the  North  End  con- 
tinued a  growing,  flourishing  community.  From 
what   we  may  gather,   that   earliest   society  had 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  17 

a  certain  ideal  character  despite  its  grim  defects. 
The  settlers  were  largely  artisans,  but  they  were 
artisans  of  unusual  quality  and  intense  religious 
convictions,  whose  chief  ambition  was  to  make 
homes  and  establish  an  ideal  state,  where  "  magis- 
trate and  minister  walked  hande  in  hande,  dis- 
countenancing and  punishing  sin  in  whomsoever, 
and  standing  for  the  praise  of  them  that  do  well." 
The  homesteads  of  very  few  can  be  positively 
located,  though  here  and  there  the  memory  of  a 
man's  residence  and  a  glimpse  of  character  sur- 
vives in  the  name  of  his  property  or  the  record 
of  some  public  act.  Thomas  Marshall  —  keeper 
of  the  first  ferry  "•  from  Mylne  Point  to  Charles- 
town,"  which  lay  at  the  foot  of  Black  Horse 
Lane,  later  Prince  Street  —  frequently  appears  in 
the  old  records.  "  Ferryman,  shoemaker,  select- 
man, land-owner,  and  deacon,"  he  may  be  regarded 
as  a  representative  citizen.  His  home  and  gar- 
den were  on  "  The  Highway  leading  from  the 
Orange  Tavern  to  the  Ferry ; "  and  in  1652, 
moved  by  an  idea  that  was  perhaps  shrewd  as 
well  as  generous,  he  gave  the  town  a  roading 
across  his  land  to  shorten  the  distance  to  the 
drawbridge  over  the  Mill  Creek,  just  as  Marshall 
Street  now  offers  a  short-cut  from  Union  to  Han- 
over Street. 


18  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

This  gift  of  a  short-cut  suggests  also  another 
story,  that  of  the  growth  that  had  gone  on  at 
either  side  of  the  creek,  too  rapidly  to  be  a  sub- 
stantial one.  Stores  and  dwellings  were  of  poor, 
slight  character,  structures  designed  to  meet  a 
hasty  need,  and  of  inflammable  material.  A 
growth  of  this  kind  could  not  be  long  uninter- 
rupted, and  between  1676  and  1679  the  catas- 
trophe inevitable  in  a  thickly  settled  community 
of  such  a  sort  took  place.  Great  fires  swept  the 
northern  end  of  the  town ;  the  first,  north  of 
the  creek,  consuming  the  church  on  North  Square 
and  many  dwellings  roundabout ;  the  second,  start- 
ing in  Dock  Square  and  spreading  until  eighty 
dwelling-houses,  seventy  warehouses,  and  several 
vessels  lying  in  dock  were  burned. 

As  nearly  as  it  may  be  defined,  the  conflagra- 
tions of  the  last  quarter  of  the  century  mark  the 
close  of  the  first  period  of  Boston  life,  the  dis- 
tinctly Puritan  period.  The  rebuilding  of  the  north- 
ern part  of  the  town  was  accomplished  by  a  people 
entering  upon  very  different  conditions  from  those 
affecting  the  men  who  first  struck  their  spades  into 
the  rocky  soil  of  the  blueberry  pastures.  Grow- 
ing prosperity  and  a  rapidly  increasing  population 
united  with  the  change  from  colonial  to  crown 
government  that   came    in    1685   to  bring  about 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  19 

marked  alterations  both  in  habits  and  ideals. 
English  governors  with  their  families  and  a  train 
of  servants  and  employees  introduced  a  social 
life  long  distinct  and  alien  from  that  of  the  Puri- 
tans, but  none  the  less  exerting  a  powerful  and 
subtle  influence.  If  Thomas  Marshall,  shoemaker 
and  selectman,  was  representative  of  the  first 
period,  John  Hull,  merchant  and  mint-master, 
was  as  surely  a  type  of  the  second.  He,  too, 
lived  north  of  the  Mill  Creek,  where  a  street 
still  testifies  to  his  position  in  the  community; 
and  it  was  in  his  home  on  Sheafe  Street  that  the 
first  mint  was  set  up.  It  is  John  Hull  who 
said  of  Endicott,  "  He  died  poor,  as  most  of 
our  rulers  do,  having  more  attended  the  public 
than  their  own  private  interests."  Hull's  virtues 
were  after  another  order.  He  did  not  die  poor. 
"  He  rendered  fairly  to  the  public,  and  in  return 
he  took  his  own." 

With  the  appointment  of  Sir  William  Phips  in 
1692,  the  story  of  North  End  life  becomes  more 
varied.  Governor  Phips  had  been  a  North  End 
boy,  apprentice  to  a  ship-carpenter,  and  upon  his 
return  to  Boston,  enriched  and  titled,  after  many 
years  of  absence,  he  built  a  "  fair  dwelling  "  near 
his  boyhood's  haunts.  It  may  have  been  the 
mansion  house  of   Sir  William  and  Lady  Phips, 


20  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

on  tlie  corner  of  Charter  Street,  tliat  first 
turned  the  tide  of  fashion  across  the  Mill  Creek ; 
for  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  century  the  sober 
streets  of  the  North  End  were  here  and  there  re- 
lieved by  the  gay  attire  and  free  demeanor  of  men 
to  whom  court  life  was  a  familiar  experience  ;  and 
mingling  with  the  gossip  of  the  North  Church 
parish  spread  rumors  of  the  doings  of  fashionable 
dames  who  were  making  the  best  of  a  temporary 
exile  from  English  society. 

The  buildings  that  sprang  up  after  the  great 
fire  expressed  both  increasing  prosperity  and  these 
changing  social  conditions.  The  flames  had  de- 
stroyed the  hovels,  and  the  new  houses  of  brick 
and  cement  suggested  hospitality,  and  had  a  com- 
fort and  a  beauty  of  their  own.  Many  of  the  better 
sort  were  built  with  overhanging  stories  and  clus- 
tered gables.  These  devices  at  once  gave  an 
imposing  appearance  and  helped  out  the  limited 
space  of  the  building  lot,  and  between  each  and  its 
neighbor  there  was  only  room  enough  for  "the 
privilege  of  eaves-dripping."  This  is  but  one  of 
the  many  indications  that  the  district  was  growing 
crowded.  Early  in  the  century  building  companies 
began  to  form,  cutting  new  roads  through  such 
meadows  as  yet  remained,  and  laying  them  out  in 
house  lots,  narrow  at  the  front  but  affording  long 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  21 

gardens  at  the  back  ;  and  by  1708,  when  the  first 
formal  list  of  streets  was  made,  there  were  found 
to  be  as  many  streets,  lanes,  and  alleys  around 
Dock  Square  and  northward  as  in  all  the  rest  of 
the  town. 

If  the  North  End  at  this  time  is  to  be  thought 
of  as  the  centre  of  population  and  business,  the 
South  End,  stretching  from  Milk  Street  out  toward 
the  Neck,  held,  perhaps,  the  suburban  part  of  the 
town,  while  the  West  End  still  offered  opportunity 
for  residents  who  preferred  isolation  or  homes  par- 
taking of  the  nature  of  farms.  The  last  was  a 
section  triangular  in  shape,  and  it  had  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  seventeenth  century  but  two  roads  cut 
through  its  pastures,  —  Sudbury  Street,  connecting 
it  with  the  business  centre,  and  Cambridge  Street. 
Beyond  were  fields  and  pastures,  which  were 
coming  to  be  called  "The  New  Fields,"  as  the 
eyes  of  the  citizens  turned  speculatively  toward 
them.  What  is  now  Bowdoin  Square  was  known 
as  Bowling  Green,  and  fell  away  in  a  grassy  slope 
to  the  Mill  Pond.  On  a  small  eminence  on  Cam- 
bridge Street  stood  a  windmill.  At  the  point  of 
the  triangle  were  copper  works,  and  in  various 
parts  of  the  fields  were  most  of  the  ropewalks  of 
the  town,  long,  narrow  sheds,  sometimes  over  seven 
hundred  feet  in  length,  where  rope  and  twine  of  all 


22  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

sorts  were  spun.  The  ropewalks  became  an  im- 
portant industry  in  Boston,  as  many  as  sixty 
spinning  at  one  time.  Even  at  this  early  date 
there  was  great  demand  for  their  products  both 
from  vessels  rigged  for  foreign  service  and  from 
fishing  and  coasting  craft  demanding  rougher  sort 
of  cordage.  The  district  was  very  sparsely  peo- 
pled, containing  only  an  occasional  farm  and  the 
dwellings  of  the  proprietors  of  those  little  manu- 
facturing enterprises  that  demanded  the  stretch  of 
ground  the  New  Fields  afforded.  The  land  was 
in  the  hands  of  a  few  men  whose  names  are  handed 
down  in  the  streets  cut  latei*  on  through  their  pas- 
tures. Phillips,  Leverett,  Lynde  and  Staniford, 
Chambers  and  Russell,  were  large  property  holders, 
while  the  Rev.  James  Allen  at  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century  owned  a  far  larger  part 
of  the  territory  of  Boston  than  was  ever  held  by 
any  one  individual  save  Blackstone,  the  pioneer. 

The  history  of  the  district  is  simply  one  of 
changing  and  increasing  proprietors  and  their 
building  enterprises,  and  can  be  almost  completely 
traced  up  to  the  time  of  the  Revolution  in  the 
names  of  its  streets.  This  last  may  be  said  also 
of  the  North  End,  except  for  the  difference  that 
there  is  between  its  characteristics  and  those 
of  the  West  End.     The  latter  is  the  story  of  indi- 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  23 

vidual  citizens  of  an  established  commnnity ;  wMle 
the  history  of  the  North  End,  as  told  by  the  vary- 
ing names  of  its  streets,  is  a  tale  of  a  town's  in- 
ception and  hard-won  development.  In  the  early 
Puritan  times,  the  titles  given  the  streets  of  the 
latter  district  are  mostly  of  a  cumbrous,  descrip- 
tive character,  as  "  The  street  leading  up  to  the 
house  of  Sir  William  Phips,  Knight."  In  Garden 
Court  Street  there  still  hngers  a  pleasant  flavor  of 
the  descriptive  custom  ;  but  most  of  the  old  names 
that  survive  chronicle  events  rather  than  character- 
istics, and  show  the  difference  between  the  simple 
expedients  of  a  hamlet  and  the  exacting  demands 
of  a  growing  town.  The  more  formal  and  perma- 
nent names  of  streets  appear  in  the  complete  hst 
already  mentioned  as  having  been  made  in  1708. 
At  that  time  Black  Horse  Lane  ceased  to  be  called 
after  the  tavern  at  its  head  and  was  known  as 
Prince  Street,  while  Fleet  Street  became  the 
recognized  title  of  Scarlet's  Wharf  Lane. 

The  year  1700  may  be  said  to  mark  about  the 
middle  of  a  half  century  in  which  New  England 
life  was  in  a  transition  state.  "  The  Pilgrims  had 
gone  out,"  wrote  Sewall,  "and  the  large  men 
had  not  come  in."  Intellectually  this  was  Boston's 
dark  age.  The  fervor  of  the  religious  life  that 
animated   the    first   settlers   was   going,  and   the 


24  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

records  of  the  churches  show  petty  and  revolting 
altercations.  It  was  its  mercantile  importance, 
constantly  increasing,  that  saved  the  social  character 
of  the  town.  So  important  a  seaport  could  not  be 
neglected  by  the  mother  country.  The  supervision 
of  the  colony's  affairs  demanded  the  services  of 
clever  governors  ;  the  business  openings  offered  by 
growing  trade  brought  good  blood  from  the  old 
world  to  seek  a  younger  son's  uncertain  fortunes 
in  the  new ;  and  many  of  the  incoming  merchants 
and  crown  officials  chose  their  dwellings  north  of 
the  creek.  Before  the  century  had  completed  its 
first  quarter  the  sober,  church-going  North  End 
was  well  started  upon  its  bravest  period,  and  for 
fifty  years  was  to  be  known  as  the  court  end  of 
the  town.  The  pronounced  change  from  exclusive 
Puritanism  was  plainly  manifested  by  the  building 
of  Christ  Church  on  Salem  Street  in  1723.  Its 
congregation,  without  doubt,  was  mainly  made  up 
of  the  families  of  the  new  English  merchants  and 
the  crown  officials,  and  the  demand  for  its  existence 
shows  the  considerable  size  of  the  new  society,  as 
the  style  of  the  edifice  the  wealth  of  its  members. 

North  Square  continued  to  be  the  social  centre, 
and  it  represented  both  phases  of  life  at  their  best. 
Side  by  side  with  the  modest,  substantial  houses 
that   were   the  homes   of   the   attendants  of   the 


GHAliL 


\ 

BOS      TON 
H    A  .  R     B     0     B 


MAJOR  PART 

OF  THE 

TOWN    OF   BOSTON 
1722 

y.    Mile 


.J.PETEBS   4   SON    ENSBS., BOSTON. 


BEFOEE  THE  INVASION  25 

churcli  of  the  Mathers  stood  two  mansions  around 
the  memory  of  which  are  gathered  tales  of  splen- 
dor and  ceremony  in  little  accord  with  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Puritans.  One  of  these,  Governor 
Hutchinson's  home,  is  inseparably  connected  with 
the  Stamp  Act  troubles,  for  in  1765  it  was  sacked 
by  the  infuriated  mob,  its  owner  barely  escaping 
with  his  life  ;  while  around  the  house  of  Sir  Harry 
Frankland  linger  not  only  tales  of  the  young  Port 
collector's  luxurious  tastes,  but  also  the  strange 
romance  of  Agnes  Surriage,  his  peasant  ward  of 
Marblehead.  These  houses  have  long  since  dis- 
appeared, and  the  one  landmark  now  remaining 
upon  the  square,  in  the  low  wooden  house  of  Paul 
Revere,  is  a  reminder  of  a  very  different  life  and 
spirit.  The  age-long  drama  of  the  Roundhead 
and  the  Cavalier  was  being  enacted  in  New  Eng- 
land as  truly  as  it  had  been  in  the  old.  While  a 
mimic  London  society  gives  color  to  the  fifty  years 
preceding  the  Revolution,  a  deeper,  stronger  life 
was  developing  among  the  plain  people,  which  was 
doubtless  broadened  and  rendered  more  effective  in 
its  final  outbreak  by  the  forced  contact  with  the 
fashionable  world.  Names  and  phrases,  well-worn 
to-day,  were  used  then  for  the  first  time  with  no 
thought  that  they  were  to  prove  the  imperishable 
catchwords  of  a  great  nation's  politics.     "  Samuel 


26  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Adams  and  twenty  others, "  writes  an  old  historian, 
"  used  to  meet  and  make  a  caucus.^'  This  is  the 
first  time  this  word  is  seen ;  and  from  the  fact 
that  the  meetings  referred  to  were  held  in  a  part 
of  Boston  where  the  ship  business  was  carried  on, 
etymologists  have  agreed  that  caucus  is  a  corrup- 
tion of  calkers^  meeting  being  understood.  A 
few  years  later,  upon  Washington's  birthday, 
William  Cooper  uttered  the  famous  words,  "  The 
spirit  of  the  times  ;  "  and  on  June  seventeenth  of 
the  same  year,  1774,  there  was  coined  in  Boston  the 
phrase  "  Continental  Congress,"  when  a  term  was 
required  to  show  American  union  as  opposed  to 
the  English  king  and  Parhament.  Boston  was  be- 
coming more  than  a  colonial  town,  and  the  little 
North  End  held  within  its  narrow  breadth  not  only 
governing  forces  from  an  old  world,  but  also  the 
germs  of  a  young  republic. 

The  days  of  Winthrop  and  Endicott,  Sewall  and 
Hull,  were  gone,  but  young  men  were  being  born 
and  bred  in  Boston  in  whose  greatness  posterity 
has  had  even  more  reason  to  believe.  Franklin 
had  left  his  father's  home  at  the  corner  of  Han- 
over and  Union  streets  before  1725,  preferring 
to  seek  his  fortune  in  another  line  than  that  of 
his  inherited  trade  of  soap-boiling  and  candle- 
making;    but  Adams    and   Hancock   and    Eevere 


BEFOBE  THE  INVASION  27 

and  Otis  lived  or  worked  at  the  North  End  dur- 
ing the  middle  years  of  the  century,  suavely  and 
shrewdly  conducting  their  business  by  day,  while 
nightly  they  foregathered  at  the  Green  Dragon  or 
the  Salutation  Inn,  maturing  plans  of  which  the 
results  were  to  help  on  the  birth  of  a  nation. 

This,  however,  was  but  an  undercurrent  for  years, 
scarcely  disturbing  the  calm  surface  of  Boston's 
steady  material  development.  North  of  the  Mill 
Creek  the  streets  grew  crowded  with  dwellings,  all 
of  brick  after  1711,  when  the  law  forbade  the  fur- 
ther use  of  wood.  Side  gardens  became  too  valu- 
able for  their  owners  to  keep,  and  houses  elbowed 
each  other  in  their  effort  for  frontage,  or  actually 
united  in  blocks.  Another  church  had  been  erected, 
"  seventeen  substantial  mechanics  "  forming  a  new 
society ;  and  on  the  site  of  the  Eliot  School  of 
to-day  had  been  established  a  "Latin  Grammar 
School"  for  boys.  Every  sort  of  business  flour- 
ished along  the  water  line  and  about  the  Town 
Dock.  In  1724  sixteen  master  ship-carpenters  of 
the  Thames  were  complaining  to  the  King  that 
their  trade  was  being  injured  and  their  workmen 
were  emigrating  on  account  of  the  New  England 
competition  ;  and  six  of  the  shipyards  that  were 
proving  such  formidable  rivals  to  the  mother  coun- 
try lay  just  at  the  base  of  Copp's  HiU.     The  great 


28  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

gift  of  Faneuil  Hall,  made  to  tlie  town  by  Peter 
Faneuil  in  1740,  established  the  gateway  to  the 
North  End  for  the  remainder  of  the  century  as 
the  business  heart  of  Boston. 

With  this  growth  of  business  came  increased 
population  and  constant  demand  for  building  lots 
having  frontage  upon  thoroughfares.  Under  such 
need  the  West  End,  during  the  second  quarter  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  grew  rapidly  to  be  a  com- 
munity by  itself.  Leverett  Street  was  cut  through 
in  1730,  forming  a  second  highway  to  Cambridge, 
and  by  1733  all  the  older  thoroughfares  had  been 
laid  out  and  named.  The  beginning  of  a  local 
social  life  is  seen  in  the  establishment  of  the  West 
Church  in  1736.  This  church  was  put  up  on 
Lynde  Street,  opposite  Cambridge  Street,  and  from 
the  day  of  its  establishment  throughout  the  century 
and  a  half  of  its  existence  it  continued  to  represent 
in  both  pulpit  and  parish  a  most  substantial  type 
of  Boston  life,  both  social  and  intellectual.  Cotton 
Hill,  where  crown  officials  formed  an  exclusive 
society,  and  the  Bowling  Green  were  the  only 
centres  of  wealth  in  the  westerly  part  of  the 
town.  The  other  streets  were  built  up  gradually 
with  modest,  comfortable  homes,  with  compara- 
tively little  business  encroachment  except  the  small 
shops   and  the  increasing  number    of   ropewalks, 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  29 

though  these  last  fled  before  the  homes  mstead  of 
the  usual  reverse  result. 

In  spite  of  court  end  traditions,  of  which  the 
novelists  make  the  most,  and  the  alleged  splen- 
dors of  Cotton  Hill,  the  pre-revolutionary  life  of 
Boston  seems  strangely  simple.  John  Frizell,  a 
wealthy  merchant  who  lived  on  Garden  Court  the 
first  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  who 
owned  much  land  in  the  neighborhood,  was  the  first 
man  in  Boston  to  keep  a  carriage,  and  the  first  stable 
in  the  town  was  his  on  Moon  Street.  By  1768,  the 
number  of  people  to  keep  carriages  was  only  twenty- 
two,  and  even  at  the  end  of  the  century  they  num- 
bered but  one  hundred  and  forty-five.  Few  houses 
were  spacious  enough  to  admit  of  large  functions, 
and  festivities  of  any  size  were  held  in  one  or  two 
halls  that  could  be  hired  for  such  occasions  at  the 
North  End.  Aside  from  the  official  life  and  a 
small  group  of  large  merchants,  the  prosperity 
of  the  town  was  represented  by  master  mechanics 
and  tradesmen.  Toward  the  end  of  the  century 
six  of  the  wealthiest  men  of  the  town  were  bakers, 
three  of  whom,  John  White,  Edward  Edes,  and 
Deacon  Tudor,  lived  at  the  North  End.  At  the 
time  of  the  siege  of  Boston,  the  baker,  Ebenezer 
Torrey,  removed  to  Sudbury,  and  died  leaving  an 
estate  of  8100,000. 


30  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

"When  tlie  discontent  of  half  a  century  culmi- 
nated in  the  uncontrollable  outbreak  that  became 
the  War  of  Independence,  the  North  End  was 
the  scene  of  exciting  preliminary  action,  and  the 
vantage  ground  from  which  the  first  decisive  battle 
was  watched.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that 
the  plain  people,  joined  by  a  scattering  few  of  the 
wealthier  class,  formed  the  nucleus  of  Boston's 
patriotic  party.  Paul  Revere,  the  versatile  North 
Square  goldsmith,  has  left  on  record,  "  In  the  fall 
of  1774  and  winter  of  1775, 1  was  one  of  upwards 
thirty,  chiefly  mechanics,  who  formed  themselves 
into  a  committee  for  the  purpose  of  watching  the 
British  soldiers  and  gaining  every  intelligence  of 
the  movements  of  the  Tories." 

These  days,  in  which  the  North  End  reached 
the  height  of  its  historic  fame,  were  in  their  very 
nature  the  beginning  of  its  decadence.  When 
General  Howe  left  Boston,  on  the  eighth  of  March, 
1776,  he  took  with  him  nearly  one  thousand  of  the 
residents  of  the  town.  Such  wealthy  and  impor- 
tant families  as  the  North  End  had  held  were  among 
these  refugees  ;  and  in  the  period  of  reconstruction 
that  followed  the  war,  the  little  Island  of  North 
Boston,  though  continuing  to  be  the  most  populous 
district  of  the  town,  and  containing  within  its  nar- 
row confines  one  third  of  the  whole  number  of 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  31 

inhabitants  on  the  peninsula,  did  not  again  attract 
people  of  means  and  ideas  of  luxurious  living. 
Its  streets  were  narrow  and  crooked,  its  houses 
small  and  too  thickly  crowded  to  admit  of  new 
buildings.  The  tide  of  fashion  turned  westward 
and  up  the  slopes  of  the  trimountain ;  and  even 
the  Puritan  type,  as  it  prospered  and  rebuilt,  found 
the  North  End  unsuited  to  its  broadening  tastes. 
Previous  to  the  Evacuation,  the  largest  congrega- 
tion in  the  town  had  been  that  of  the  New  North 
Church  on  Hanover  Street.  Its  subsequent  decay 
is  typical  of  the  change  in  the  whole  district.  In 
1775,  many  of  its  members  retired  to  the  country, 
and  upon  their  return  to  Boston  did  not  renew 
their  connection  with  the  church.  Says  an  old 
chronicler,  "  The  young  gentlemen  who  have  mar- 
ried wives  in  other  parts  of  the  town  have  found 
it  difficult  to  persuade  them  to  become  so  ungenteel 
as  to  attend  worship  at  the  North  End.  Even  the 
clergymen  have  abandoned  that  part  of  the  town. 
There  are  six  large  congregations  to  the  northward 
of  the  canal,  and  only  one  of  their  ministers  re- 
sides there."  Hanover  and  Salem  streets  and 
their  lanes  were  left  to  folk  of  busy  lives  and  lim- 
ited means  who  still  prized  the  advantages  of  homes 
near  the  centre  of  trade  ;  and  until  the  middle 
of  the  century  they  held  a  constantly  decreasing 


32  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

number  of  thrifty  mechanics  and  small  merchants, 
with  occasional  families  of  means  and  culture  who 
clung  to  their  old  homes. 

The  loss  in  population  which  Boston  sustained 
after  the  war  had  been  made  up  by  a  new  element 
coming  into  the  city  to  take  advantage  of  the  fresh 
commercial  openings.  This  consisted  of  wealthy 
country  families,  largely  from  Essex  County,  who 
quickly  took  a  prominent  part  in  both  the  business 
and  public  life  of  the  town.  Splendid  mansions 
were  built,  exceeding  anything  that  Boston  had 
seen  before  in  the  way  of  homes ;  many  on  Fort 
HiU,  some  on  Beacon  Hill,  and  others  on  the  Bowl- 
ing Green,  which  in  1788  received  its  new  name. 
It  was  at  that  time  the  seat  of  spacious  old-time 
mansion  houses,  with  beautiful  grounds  and  fine 
trees,  and  most  of  the  householders  were  weU- 
known  men.  By  the  beginning  of  the  century, 
Bowdoin  Square  was  the  most  important  social 
centre  at  the  West  End,  and  it  was  almost  the 
only  spot  at  the  time  where  any  large  number  of 
wealthy  or  distinguished  families  built. 

By  1775  the  cross  streets  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
square  had  most  of  them  the  outlines  of  to-day. 
Further  west  the  greater  part  of  the  area  was  in 
its  primitive  condition  of  pastures,  with  the  pest- 
house  and  the  Province  hospital  located  upon  Grove 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  33 

Street  by  reason  of  the  remoteness  of  the  locality. 
In  1784  tlie  whole  West  End  held  one  meeting-house 
and  about  one  hundred  and  seventy  dwellings,  and 
it  was  looked  upon  as  rather  a  remote  district, 
although  it  was  regarded  favorably  as  a  pleasant 
and  healthy  one  on  account  of  its  shelter  from  the 
east  winds.  From  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  its  growth  was  rapid  in  every  direction. 
In  thirty  years  it  had  outwardly  much  the  appear- 
ance of  to-day,  and  socially  the  character  that  it  was 
to  preserve  for  half  a  century.  To  the  west  and 
north,  streets  were  quickly  put  through,  and  by  1804 
Pinckney  and  Hancock  and  Myrtle  streets  were 
crowned  with  pleasant  homes.  In  that  year  the 
child  population  had  become  sufficiently  large  and 
democratic  to  demand  a  public  school,  and  the 
Mayhew  School  was  erected  on  the  corner  of  Char- 
don  and  Hawkins  streets. 

The  social  development  of  the  West  End  was 
for  many  years  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  decay  of  the 
North  End.  Just  as  the  former  reached  its  best 
development,  the  latter,  about  1850,  was  yielding 
up  its  last  traces  of  the  old  American  life.  Its 
changes,  however,  after  the  first  great  loss  of 
wealth  in  1775,  were  gradual  ones.  Names  still 
spoken  in  Boston  are  associated  with  the  decadent 
period  of   the  old  court   end.      Hanover    Street, 


34  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

though  abounding  in  small  stores,  held  a  good 
many  substantial  families  up  to  1840.  On  Sheafe 
Street,  Lyman  Beecher  and  his  famous  family 
made  their  home  ;  and  it  is  this  street,  with  its  old 
gardens  at  the  back,  which  was  the  last  to  suc- 
cumb to  the  pressure  of  the  immigrants.  Its  final 
surrender  was  dramatically  sudden,  according  to 
the  district's  historian.  Nine  famihes  who  ate 
Thanksgiving  dinner  on  Sheafe  Street  one  year 
were  partaking  of  it  the  next  at  the  South  End. 
North  Street,  long  doubtful  in  character,  sunk  still 
further  in  degradation,  and  gradually  infected  its 
neighbors.  One  by  one  the  quiet  streets  were 
encroached  upon  by  the  two  fatal  enemies  of  home 
life,  the  tenement  and  retail  business;  until  for 
fifty  years  the  North  End  has  been  simply  a 
synonym  for  the  first  sheltering  place  of  hordes  of 
immigrants  fleeing  from  oppressive  conditions  of 
the  old  world  ;  one  race  after  another  successively 
settling,  prospering,  and  moving  on. 

As  of  old.  North  Square  is  the  centre  of  a  social 
life ;  but  over  the  doors  of  houses  where  once 
stood  the  homes  of  English  carpenters,  coopers, 
and  candle-makers,  hang  Italian  patronymics ;  and 
the  quiet  triangle  resounds  to  the  chatter  of  a 
people  to  whom  the  tongue  of  Holyoke  and  Mather 
is  almost  as  strange  as  the  famous  Puritans'  names. 


BEFOBE  THE  INVASION  36 

As  of  old,  the  district  is  but  three  streets  wide. 
The  pressure  of  business  buildings  erected  on  the 
new  land  keeps  the  tenements  within  the  old  out- 
lines prescribed  by  the  waters  of  the  long-forgot- 
ten Pond,  Creek,  and  Cove.  The  North  End  is  no 
longer  an  island,  no  longer  even  a  peninsula ;  acres 
of  made  land  connect  its  area  with  that  of  the  West 
End,  the  promontory  so  many  centuries  divided 
from  it  by  the  tide-water  and  the  Mill  Pond.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  the  Mill  Pond 
was  filled  in ;  in  1828  the  water  was  cut  off  from 
the  Mill  Creek;  and  in  1868  came  the  final  ob- 
literations of  the  island's  early  outlines,  when  the 
shore  of  the  Great  Cove  was  dredged  and  the 
Cove  made  solid  land  by  the  transference  to  its  bed 
of  the  earth  that  had  once  formed  Fort  Hill. 
Boston's  original  distinguishing  features,  a  histo- 
rian observes,  were  its  hills  and  coves ;  but  in 
the  course  of  years  "  its  coves  have  swallowed  up 
its  hills." 

This  development  of  the  old  district's  possi- 
bilities had  its  effect  upon  the  character  of  the 
neighboring  West  End,  though  the  change  was  so 
gradual  as  to  be  hardly  perceptible  at  any  one  time. 
For  many  years  the  district  altered  very  little  out- 
wardly, the  vacant  lots  on  the  slopes  of  the  hill 
filling  up  with  tall,  narrow  houses  overflowing  with 


36  AMERICANS  JN  PROCESS 

family  life.  Regular  blocks  were  the  exception, 
as  householders  were  establishing  their  own  homes 
for  the  most  part,  and  each  built  after  his  own 
fancy  so  far  as  limited  space  would  permit.  The 
occasional  wooden  house  of  the  first  of  the  century 
gave  up  its  garden  to  the  square-cornered  brick 
wedge  that  followed  it  as  a  model  dwelling,  and 
both  were  overshadowed  later  on  by  the  four-story 
swell  front  that  gained  in  favor  after  1850.  The 
important  changes  henceforth  were  the  gradual, 
imperceptible  ones  incidental  to  the  pressure  from 
behind  of  business  and  immigration. 

As  Bowdoin  Square  earliest  became  a  social 
centre,  so  it  first  felt  these  encroachments  which 
advanced  quickly  after  the  work  of  filling  in 
the  Mill  Pond  began.  The  square's  existence  as 
a  fashionable  quarter  covered  perhaps  fifty  years. 
Within  that  period  its  character  changed  from 
country  homes  to  suburban  estates ;  these  later 
giving  way  to  city  blocks  of  stone  and  brick,  some 
of  which  still  survive  transformed  into  buildings 
for  public  use.  After  1875,  changes  came  rapidly, 
and  old  inhabitants  began  to  look  back  upon  a 
time  when  society  was  unmixed  with  the  dreaded 
"  foreign  element." 

During  most  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
West  End  was  a  district  splendidly  representative 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  37 

of  Anglo-Saxon  American  life.  Upon  the  summit 
of  Beacon  Hill  were  the  finest  residences  of  the 
city,  rapidly  increasing  in  number  after  the  com- 
pletion of  the  State  House  in  1798  ;  and  upon  the 
streets  just  behind  the  State  House  to  the  east, 
Hancock,  Temple,  and  Bowdoin  streets,  lived  some 
of  the  most  distinguished  men  in  Boston's  history. 
In  sharp  contrast,  close  by,  on  the  slope  of  the 
hill,  stood  miserable  huts  tenanted  by  the  most 
disreputable  people  of  the  city.  At  the  end  of 
Joy  Street  and  straggling  northward  was  a  colony 
of  negroes  living  in  extreme  squalor.  Except  for 
the  portions  occupied  by  these  extremes  of  society, 
the  West  End  was  a  comfortable,  fairly  well-to-do 
community,  abundantly  supplied  with  churches  and 
public  schools.  It  was  cut  off  from  the  rest  of 
residential  Boston  by  the  Common  and  business 
sections,  and  preserved  the  distinct  local  feeling 
and  characteristics  of  a  small  town.  Allen  and 
McLean  streets  held  the  homes  of  the  most  privi- 
leged; Chambers,  Stamford,  Lynde,  and  part  of 
Leverett  streets  were  inhabited  by  the  fairly  well- 
to-do  ;  and  the  narrow  houses  on  the  steep  hillside 
streets  were  owned  or  rented  by  thrifty,  ambitious 
American  families  but  one  generation  from  the 
farm.  The  population  was  comparatively  free 
from  foreigners,  and  the  public  schools  were  filled 


38  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

with  the  children  of  typical  New  England  homes, 
whose  heads  represented  the  substantial  business 
life  of  the  city,  in  all  its  grades.  The  English 
High  School  for  boys  was  located  at  the  west  end 
of  Pinckney  Street.  It  was  founded  for  the  pur- 
pose of  giving  to  boys  who  did  not  care  for  col- 
lege training  a  good  English  and  business  preparar 
tion,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  French  language. 
When  a  High  School  for  girls  was  projected,  the 
best  district  in  the  city  for  the  experiment  was  con- 
sidered to  be  that  of  the  Bowdoin  School  on  Myr- 
tle Street.  Except  upon  the  summit  of  the  hill, 
the  life  was  mostly  the  simple,  democratic  one  ex- 
pressed by  the  public  schools ;  and  so  stable  was 
the  population  that  sometimes  three  generations  of 
the  same  family  received  their  elementary  education 
in  the  same  grammar  school. 

The  first  enemy  of  the  home  life  of  the  West  End 
was  not  the  one  that  earliest  attacked  the  older  dis- 
trict. It  was  the  outcome,  not  of  foreign  immigra- 
tion, but  of  increase  in  native  population  drawn  in 
by  the  growth  of  the  city's  trade.  Boarding-houses, 
and  not  tenements,  here  put  the  homes  to  flight. 
Lads  from  sixteen  to  twenty-five,  leaving  the  farm 
for  the  larger  opportunities  of  the  city,  demanded 
shelter.  Widows  and  spinsters  of  the  West  End 
opened  their  doors,  thankful  for  this  new  means  of 


BEFORE  THE  INVASION  39 

bread-winning  at  a  time  when  needlework  and 
teaching  were  the  only  occupations  for  American 
women.  The  boarding-house  life  of  the  middle  of 
the  century  is  held  often  in  pleasant  and  grateful 
remembrance  by  gray-haired  business  merchants  ; 
and  literary  circles,  that  the  reading  world  has 
come  to  think  of  with  affection,  existed  within  these 
narrow  boarding-houses  on  some  of  the  hilly  streets 
of  the  West  End.  Their  less  worthy  successors, 
the  lodging-houses,  still  mark  the  advance  of  irre- 
sistible forces  that  are  at  last  pushing  all  the 
earlier  types  of  American  life  entirely  outside  of 
the  confines  of  old  Boston, 


CHAPTER  ni 

THE  'invading   HOST 

The  North  End,  for  its  present  inhabitants,  has 
representatives  of  twenty-five  different  nationali- 
ties. Irish,  Jews,  and  Italians  are  the  large  factors 
in  the  population,  together  making  up  four  fifths 
of  the  whole.  In  1895,  the  total  population  of  the 
North  End  was  23,800.  The  census  of  1900 
shows  that  this  number  has  grown  to  28,000. 

The  West  End  has  had  a  later  development 
than  the  North  End,  and  shows  a  less  variety  of 
nationalities.  Its  population  has  never  been  of  so 
foreign  a  character  as  that  of  the  North  End, 
although  a  large  Jewish  influx  has  poured  into  its 
streets  during  the  past  few  years,  and  has  changed 
the  complexion  of  the  entire  district.  At  the  pre- 
sent time,  the  West  End  may  be  divided,  by  a  line 
running  through  Green  and  Allen  streets,  into 
two  distinct  sections.  The  section  north  of  this 
line  is  similar  to  the  North  End  in  the  character 
of  its  inhabitants,  wliile  the  southern  section  re- 
sembles the  South  End.     The  total  population  of 


North  Union  Station 


JEWS 
ITALIANS 
PORTUGUESE 
MIXED 


Map  Illustrating  the  Distribution  of  the 

PREDOMINANT  RACE  FACTORS 

in  -the 
NORTH    END,  BOSTON. 


TBE  INVADING  HOST  41 

the  West  End  in  1895  was  28,000,  nearly  one  half 
of  which  was  made  up  of  Jews  and  Irish.  In  1900, 
the  total  population  was  approximately  34,500, 
and  the  proportion  of  Jews  was  greatly  increased.^ 
The  homogeneous  character  of  Boston's  popu- 
lation was  first  seriously  disturbed  by  the  Irish 
famine  of  1846.  For  fifteen  years  before  that 
date  a  fairly  steady  immigration  of  Irish,  English, 
British-Americans,  and  Germans  had  made  the 
foreign-born  inhabitants  of  the  North  End  number 
about  one  third  of  a  total  population  of  20,000. 
Immigration  into  Boston  for  ten  years  following 
the  Irish  famine  was  so  preponderatingly  Irish 
that  other  nationalities  may  be  practically  disre- 
garded. The  growth  of  the  Irish  during  those  ten 
years,  including  their  children  born  in  this  coun- 
try, was  over  100  per  cent.  Already,  in  1850,  the 
Irish  formed  about  one  half  of  the  population  of 

^  The  census  of  1900  bring-s  out  the  interesting'  fact  that,  for 
the  city  as  a  whole,  the  older  nationalities — the  Irish,  English, 
Scotch,  and  Germans  —  have  decreased  slightly  since  1895.  The 
British- Americans  and  Swedes  have  made  steady  increase,  and 
the  Italians  and  Jews  have  grown  with  astonishing  rapidity.  The 
Italians  have  grown  from  7900  to  13,738,  making  an  increase  of 
74  per  cent,  in  five  years  :  the  Russians  have  grown  from  11,979 
to  14,995,  or  25  per  cent. ;  and  the  Poles  from  1221  to  3832,  or 
2 14  per  cent.  The  greater  part  of  this  increase  of  Italians  and 
Jews  has  been  in  the  two  districts  under  consideration. 


42  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

23,000  in  the  North  End,  while  the  Americans 
numbered  only  9200.  Still,  the  Irish  were  closely 
packed  away  on  the  back  streets,  so  that  the  gen- 
eral effect  was  Anglo-Saxon  rather  than  Celtic.^ 
By  1855  the  Irish  had  grown  to  14,000,  and  the 
total  population  to  26,000.  Fortunately  for  the 
health  of  the  inhabitants,  the  North  End  has  never 
contained  a  larger  population  than  this.  The  Irish 
inhabitants  continued  to  increase  slowly  up  to 
1880.  Since  that  time,  with  the  advent  of  other 
nationalities,  they  have  rapidly  diminished.  In 
1895  they  numbered  6800.  The  Americans,  mean- 
time, have  dwindled  to  insignificant  proportions. 
In  1895  only  about  1500  persons  remained  whose 
parents  were  born  in  the  United  States,  and  half 
this  number  were  children  of  parents  born  out- 
side Massachusetts.  It  requires  diligent  search 
to  find  any  Boston  family  still  clinging  to  its 
old  home,  in  the  midst  of  this  motley  mixture 
of  races.  In  the  West  End,  the  Irish  never  had 
so  great  a  preponderance  as  in  the  North  End. 
In  1850  they  formed  about  one  fifth  of  a  total 
population  of  20,518,  and  in  1855  they  formed  a 
little    less  than   one  fourth    of    a  population   of 

^  A  city  census  of  1850  gives  the  nationalities  by  streets,  mak- 
ing possible  an  exact  comparison  between  that  period  and  the 
present. 


THE  INVADING  HOST  43 

23,500.  A  steady  increase  until  1880  brought 
their  numbers  up  to  10,000,  whicli  gave  them 
a  lead  of  3600  over  the  American  residents. 
Before  another  census  was  taken  the  tide  had 
turned,  just  as  it  had  in  the  North  End,  and  the 
decrease  has  continued  up  to  the  present.  In 
1895,  the  Irish,  numbering  7200,  were  the  leading 
nationality  in  the  West  End.  During  the  past 
seven  years,  however,  the  Jews  have  displaced 
them  so  rapidly  that  the  Irish  probably  no  longer 
hold  first  place.  A  larger  number  of  Americans 
live  in  the  West  End  than  in  the  North  End.  In 
1895,  4800  resided  there,  though  to  a  large  extent 
they  belong  to  the  lodging-house  class  and  do  not 
represent  American  family  life. 

The  advent  of  the  Irish  brought  about  the  first 
in  a  series  of  racial  shiftings  in  the  North  and 
West  Ends.  About  1880  there  came  a  marked 
change  in  the  character  of  immigration.  Since 
then,  so  rapid  a  transformation  has  been  produced 
that  even  old  inhabitants,  daily  witnesses  of  the 
scene,  have  been  startled  at  times.  In  1880,  less 
than  1000  Italians  lived  in  the  North  End,  and 
only  125  in  the  West  End.  In  the  whole  of  both 
districts,  only  a  few  hundred  Jews  were  to  be  found, 
and  most  of  those  were  Germans.  The  Russians 
were  outnumbered  even  by  the  Poles.     In  the  pre- 


44  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

sent  situation  one  can  trace  but  little  resemblance 
to  that  of  1880.  The  story  of  immigration  into 
Boston  for  the  last  twenty  years  is  for  the  most 
part  an  influx  of  Jews  and  Italians  followed  by 
more  Jews  and  Italians.  According  to  the  census 
of  1895,  the  number  of  Italians  in  the  North  End 
had  reached  7700.  The  Kussians  and  Poles, 
who,  roughly  speaking,  form  the  Jewish  popula- 
tion, numbered  6200,  all  but  400  of  these  being 
Eussians.  Although  it  has  been  a  popular  belief 
that  a  greater  mass  of  Jews  than  of  any  other  sub- 
division of  humanity  will  collect  in  a  given  space, 
a  longer  acquaintance  with  the  Italians  has  forced 
one  to  abandon  this  idea.  When  the  North  End 
reached  the  point  of  human  saturation,  the  less  per- 
sistent material  —  that  is,  the  Jews  and  the  Irish 
—  found  its  way  to  neighboring  places,  leaving  the 
Italians  in  possession.  In  the  West  End,  in  1895, 
there  were  6300  Jews  and  only  1100  Italians,  and 
migration  to  this  section  from  the  North  End  con- 
tinues to  be  more  largely  Jewish  than  Italian.  At 
present,  immigration  from  Ireland  is  just  about 
sufficient  to  keep  up  the  number  of  Irish  homes  in 
these  districts.  The  excited,  venturesome  immi- 
gration of  the  fifties  has  now  given  place  to  a  calm 
and  confident  arrival  in  response  to  invitations  of 
relatives  or  friends. 


THE  INVADING  HOST  45 

Besides  the  Irish,  Jews,  and  Italians,  some  of 
the  less  important  nationalities  deserve  mention. 
About  800  Portuguese  were  living  in  the  North 
End  in  1895  ;  but  removals  to  the  suburbs  have 
since  thinned  them  out.  British  and  British- 
Americans  to  the  number  of  1200  are  scattered 
throughout  the  North  End.  In  the  West  End, 
they  are  more  numerous,  as  they  centre  in  lodging- 
house  districts.  Some  1400  British  and  2000 
British-Americans  are  to  be  found  in  the  West 
End,  chiefly  in  the  southern  part  of  the  district. 
About  3000  negroes  also  occupy  a  fairly  well-de- 
fined area  around  PhiUips  Street  in  the  West  End. 

A  number  of  more  temporary  residents  make 
themselves  conspicuous  in  both  districts.  Sea-far- 
ing transients  of  many  nationalities  find  harbor 
from  the  dangers  of  the  deep  in  sailors'  boarding 
and  lodging  houses,  which  are  not  without  their 
own  peculiar  perils.  At  any  given  time  perhaps 
one  hundred  sailors  may  be  found  in  the  district ; 
but  the  number  varies.  They  go  on  a  coasting 
voyage  of  from  four  to  six  weeks,  and  stay  ashore 
till  their  wages  are  spent.  This  does  not  take 
long ;  for  the  recreation  of  the  majority  of  them 
includes  some  sort  of  dissipation.  Besides  these 
regular  sailor  inhabitants,  a  number  of  sailors  from 
the  steamships  spend  their  leisure  in  the  city  while 


46  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

living  aboard  their  vessels.  A  larger  number  of 
tramps  also  seem  to  live  in  tlie  cheap  lodging-houses 
of  the  North  End  than  in  other  parts  of  the  city. 
They  cling  to  the  outskirts  of  the  district,  and  ask 
for  a  drink  or  for  a  cent  to  get  across  the  ferry. 
No  tramp  was  ever  yet  on  the  right  side  of  a 
ferry. 

The  causes  of  the  enormous  influx  of  Jews  and 
southern  Italians  during  recent  years  are  excep- 
tional, and  deserve  consideration.  In  the  south  of 
Italy  emigration  is  confined  chiefly  to  the  peasants 
from  the  mountain  districts,  where  the  civilization 
of  the  coast  regions  has  not  penetrated,  but  where 
the  tax-gatherer  never  fails  to  appear.  The  natural 
poverty  of  the  country  would  be  in  itself  a  suffi- 
cient cause  of  emigration ;  for  artisans'  wages  are 
less  in  Italy  than  in  Germany,  and  farm-hands  re- 
ceive barely  enough  to  maintain  life,  their  wages 
not  infrequently  falling  below  twenty  cents  a  day.  ^ 
But  the  unbearable  part  of  Italian  poverty  lies  in 
the  vicious  system  of  taxation,  which  seems  to  be 
specially  arranged  to  oppress  the  poor.  "  Progres- 
sive taxation  topsy-turvy,  "  some  one  calls  it,  for  it 
has  been  estimated  that  fifty-four  per  cent,  of  the 
taxes  are  paid  by  the  poor  and  working  classes.^ 

1  See  Italy  To-day^  by  Bolton  King  and  Thomas  Okey,  p.  126. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  138. 


Map  Illustrating  the  Distribution  of  the 

PREDOMINANT  RACE  FACTORS 

in    the 
WEST   END,  BOSTON. 


AMERICANS 

IRISH 

JEWS 

BRITISH  &  PROVINCIALS 

NEGROES 

ITALIANS 

MIXED 


THE  INVADING  HOST  47 

The  small  farmer  is  perhaps  most  seriously  affected. 
The  land  tax  alone  takes  from  twenty  to  twenty-five 
per  cent,  of  the  net  profits  of  the  farm,  and  in  ad- 
dition to  it  he  must  pay  income  tax,  succession  duty, 
and  communal  cattle  tax,  beside  the  various  indi- 
rect taxes  which  bear  heavily  upon  the  necessaries 
of  life.i  Not  infrequently  the  profits  of  a  farm 
are  entirely  absorbed  by  taxes,  and  improvements 
are  not  undertaken  through  fear  of  increased  as- 
sessment. 

Poverty  in  Italy  is  also  intimately  associated 
with  over-population.  The  birth-rate  is  high;  in 
fact,  for  all  of  Europe,  the  excess  of  births  over 
deaths  is  greater  only  in  Germany,  Great  Britain, 
and  the  Scandinavian  countries ;  and  parts  of  Italy 
are  among  the  most  densely  peopled  districts  of 
Europe.  One  third  too  many  laborers  in  the  Po 
vaUey  is  the  estimate  of  one  writer.^  This  sur- 
plus population  is,  of  course,  a  serious  impediment 
to  the  economic  progress  of  the  lower  classes  ;  but 
the  high  birth-rate,  especially  marked  among  the 
very  poor,  seems  to  show  that  the  over-population 
is  rather  the  result  of  utter  hopelessness  arising 
out  of  economic  conditions  than  the  cause  of  those 
conditions.  At  any  rate  economic  conditions  and 
the  surplus  population  together  make  Italy  a  coun- 
1  Ibid.,  p.  140.  2  Ibid.,  p.  311. 


48  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

try  to  get  away  from ;  and  the  stories  of  a  returned 
emigrant  or  tlie  persuasiveness  of  a  steamship 
agent  will  be  enough  to  start  a  considerable  exodus. 
Sometimes  the  renting  or  selling  of  a  farm  will 
provide  the  funds  for  passage  money,  but  many 
who  are  unable  to  raise  a  sufficient  amount  are 
assisted  by  friends  in  America.  It  will  be  easily 
understood,  therefore,  that  they  have  little  money 
to  exhibit  upon  their  arrival  in  this  country. 

The  emigration  of  Jews  from  Russia  has  been 
indirectly  necessitated  by  the  repressive  action  of 
the  Russian  government.  The  real  cause  of  the 
trouble  lies  in  the  long  and  bitter  contest  which 
has  gone  on  in  that  country  between  Jew  and  Gen- 
tile. At  last  many  of  the  Gentiles,  finding  them- 
selves undermined  by  the  subtle  Jewish  methods, 
organized  riots  and  destroyed  the  property  of  those 
who,  they  felt,  had  undone  them.  The  "  May 
Laws "  of  1882,  following  the  anti-Semitic  riots, 
revoked  certain  privileges  which  had  been  ac- 
corded to  the  Jews  since  1865,  and  required 
the  enforcement  of  previous  laws  restricting  the 
residence  of  most  Jews  to  fifteen  provinces  in 
the  western  part  of  Russia  known  as  the  Jew- 
ish Pale  of  Settlement ;  and  it  furthermore  pro- 
hibited their  residing  in  the  country  districts. 
Those  decrees   have   been   enforced  with  varying 


THE  INVADING  HOST  49 

degrees  of  severity  in  the  different  districts ; 
but  the  result  has  been  to  overcrowd  the  towns 
of  the  Pale  and  to  deprive  a  large  number  of 
the  Jews  of  even  the  bare  means  of  livelihood. 
It  has  been  through  the  benevolence  of  Baron 
de  Hirsch  that  thousands  who  had  no  means  of 
their  own  were  enabled  to  reach  America.  Now, 
however,  the  influence  of  the  administrators  of  his 
great  trust  is  exerted  to  turn  the  tide  of  immigra- 
tion toward  the  Argentine  Republic. 

To  Jewish  sympathizers  the  action  of  the  Czar 
has  seemed  an  uncalled-for  persecution,  an  outrage 
against  humanity.  It  has  indeed  involved  much 
barbarous  severity  and  a  vast  amount  of  unde- 
served suffering.  It  was  not,  however,  as  is  often 
supposed,  the  outcome  of  mere  meaningless  hatred. 
The  case  of  the  Russian  is  summed  up  simply  in 
the  old  story  of  the  money-lending  Jew.  From 
the  Russian  point  of  view,  the  matter  was  an  ur- 
gent one,  and  the  remedy  was  thought  to  be,  under 
the  circumstances,  a  great  piece  of  statesmanship. 
The  Russian  peasant  was,  of  course,  no  match  for 
the  Jew  in  the  instinct  for  sharp  practice  in  trade. 
Even  hedged  in  by  a  multitude  of  restrictions,  the 
Jews  have  become  an  economic  power  in  Russia  — 
too  often  a  grasping  and  relentless  power.  If  they 
had  perfect  freedom,  they  would  erelong  control 


60  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

the  material  resources  of  the  country.  But  such 
a  triumph  of  a  narrow  and  specialized  economic 
instinct  is  a  form  of  survival  to  which  the  Czar  is 
inalterably  opposed.  He  stands  as  the  protector 
of  his  hundred  million  Russian  subjects,  and  feels 
that  the  Jew  must  not  be  allowed  to  outwit  them 
and  hinder  their  natural  economic  development. 

The  American  sequel  to  these  and  similar  pas- 
sages in  the  history  of  Europe  during  the  past 
century  has  to  do  with  imparting  distinctive  Amer- 
ican qualities  to  the  individual  immigrant  type,  and 
with  bringing  about  a  degree  of  common  feehng 
among  these  diverse  ethnic  types  in  their  immedi- 
ate relations  one  with  another.  Both  these  ends 
may  possibly  be  attained  by  the  same  means, 
but  not  necessarily.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  two 
nationalities  may  readily  adopt  American  ideals 
and  standards  of  life  and  yet  not  conform  to 
each  other.  They  may  never  be  wrought  into 
social  unity.  The  Americanizing  process  is  —  up 
to  a  certain  point  —  the  less  difficult  of  accomplish- 
ment. American  ideals  in  time  usually  appeal 
to  persons  who  have  sufficient  enterprise  to  emi- 
grate, although  extreme  isolation  is  likely  to  thwart 
such  a  tendency.  To  obtain  complete  social  unity, 
there  must  be  concrete  common  interests  sufficient 
to  insure  active  cooperation  between  the  members 


THE  INVADING  HOST  51 

of  tlie  different  racial  groups.  All  this  means 
more  than  naturalization  and  casting  a  vote.  To 
appreciate  the  difficulty  properly  involves  an  in- 
quiry Into  every  phase  of  social  life ;  though  only 
some  of  the  most  important  tendencies,  as  seen  in 
Boston's  chief  Immigrant  districts,  can  be  noted 
here. 

A  disturbed  balance  of  the  sexes  is  the  inevita- 
ble result  of  any  great  movement  of  population. 
A  significant  characteristic  of  the  North  End  lies 
in  the  abnormal  excess  of  males  over  females, 
which,  according  to  the  census  of  1895,  amounts 
to  1500,  two  thirds  of  this  excess  being  attributed 
to  the  Italians.  This  number,  however,  is  doubt- 
less too  small ;  for  the  census  was  taken  in  the 
spring  of  the  year,  when  the  Italians  begin  to  get 
work  outside  the  city.  It  is  pretty  certain  that  a 
much  larger  number  of  single  men  than  is  indicated 
by  the  census  returns  resides  in  the  Italian  quarter 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  and  the  actual 
number  Is  still  further  augmented  by  transients, 
who  are  always  a  considerable  factor  in  a  colony 
of  this  size.  Each  nationality  has  some  excess 
of  males  over  females,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Irish,  British- Americans,  and  Portuguese.  The 
excess  of  females  In  these  cases  is  insignificant, 
save  with  the  Irish,  where  it  amounts  to  over  200. 


52  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

These  facts  mean  a  distinct  majority  of  men  in 
the  tenement  houses,  with  a  slight  preponderance 
of    women  in   the   lodging-houses. 

To  the  disproportion  of  the  sexes  in  the  tene- 
ments, a  large  degree  of  overcrowding  and  the 
crime  resulting  therefrom  may  be  directly  traced. 
A  considerable,  though  a  decreasing,  proportion  of 
Italians  are  temporary  residents  in  this  country, 
and  they  occupy  provisional  quarters.  Their  pur- 
pose is  to  save  money,  and  they  do  it  by  maintain- 
ing the  most  niggardly  kind  of  existence.  Fami- 
lies having  small  tenements  sublet  rooms  to  them 
for  their  accommodation.  Eight,  ten,  and  some- 
times more  men  will  occupy  a  single  room.  For 
the  room,  a  fire,  and  perhaps  some  slight  services 
in  mending,  each  lodger  pays  twenty-five  or  thirty 
cents  a  week.  A  scant  amount  of  cheap  food  takes 
a  dollar  more.  But  this  small  expense  for  neces- 
saries is  sometimes  supplemented  by  a  large  liquor 
bill.  A  number  of  men  living  together  in  idle- 
ness makes  card-playing  and  beer-drinking  com- 
mon and,  for  them,  expensive  modes  of  recreation  ; 
and  in  this  kind  of  life  may  be  found  the  cause 
of  most  of  the  serious  crime  of  the  North  End. 
Being  an  excitable  race,  the  Italians  resort  to 
knives  and  pistols  in  quarrels  over  cards  or  from 
jealousies  arising  from  the  relationship  of  the  sexes. 


THE  INVADING  HOST  53 

But  overcrowding  among  the  Italians  is  not  con- 
fined to  single  men.  Many  Italian  families  live  in 
very  congested  fashion.  The  tenement-house  cen- 
sus of  Boston,  taken  in  1891,  presented  some  very 
significant  figures  as  to  this  point.  At  a  time 
when  there  was  a  much  smaller  number  of  Italians 
than  at  present,  two  precincts,  occupied  chiefly  by 
Italians,  contained  154  families  who  were  occupy- 
ing only  one  room  each;  and  459  families,  or  more 
than  one  half  the  inhabitants  of  the  precincts, 
were  living  on  an  average  with  more  than  two 
persons  to  a  room.  Even  families  who  could  well 
afford  comfortable  tenements  often  show  no  incli- 
nation to  give  up  their  insanitary  dwellings.  But 
many  of  the  Italians  are  beginning  to  seek  some- 
thing better.  They  are  now,  in  considerable  num- 
bers, moving  into  the  more  desirable  tenements  to 
the  west  of  Hanover  Street ;  and  some  families, 
especially  of  the  second  generation,  are  taking  a 
more  significant  step  in  detaching  themselves  from 
the  colony  and  settling  amid  pleasanter  surround- 
ings. Meanwhile  many  new  additions  are  being 
made  to  the  colony,  as  the  result  of  the  establish- 
ment of  a  direct  line  of  steamers  between  Boston 
and  the  Mediterranean. 

Jewish  abodes  in  the  North  End  are  only  a  little 
less  crowded  than  those  of  the  Italians,  but  it  is 


54  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

the  crowding  due  to  large  families,  not  to  numbers 
of  adults.  As  the  Jews  become  more  wealthy,  or 
in  other  words,  as  time  passes,  they  do  not  propor- 
tionately enlarge  their  quarters.  Still  having  the 
herding  instinct  of  the  ghetto,  the  overcrowding 
of  their  rooms  occurs  to  them  as  an  easy  method 
of  thrift.  The  uncleanly  ways  of  the  ghetto  thus 
continue  to  find  a  pretext. 

But  neither  cramped  quarters  nor  the  absorp- 
tion of  business  affairs  destroys  Jewish  home  and 
family  life.  Married  life  is  the  normal  state  of 
the  Jews,  and  they  uniformly  have  large  families. 
Their  children  are  nurtured  and  trained  with  affec- 
tionate care.  There  is  noticeable  attachment  be- 
tween the  two  generations,  even  outside  the  family 
circle.  A  mutual  regard  and  confidence  exists 
between  old  and  young,  such  as  is  seldom  found 
among  other  nationalities.  Jewish  boys  associate 
freely  with  their  elders,  and  the  relationship  is  so 
natural  as  to  show  neither  presumption  on  the  one 
side  nor  patronage  on  the  other.  Small  children 
may  be  seen  tagging  along  after  the  patriarchs, 
who  give  a  friendly  welcome  to  their  advances. 
And  the  freedom  engenders  in  the  young  a  respect 
for  their  elders,  which  is  lacking  among  those  na- 
tionalities in  which  the  two  generations  are  seldom 
united  in  free  social  intercourse.     It  is  one  of  the 


THE  INVADING  HOST  65 

sad  and  disappointing  aspects  of  life  for  the  older 
members  of  the  Jewish  community  that,  as  time 
goes  by,  the  language  and  customs  of  the  new 
country  become  a  serious  barrier  between  their 
children  and  themselves.  Jewish  women  are  ten- 
derly cared  for  as  mothers,  though,  true  to  ancient 
traditions,  the  men  are  superior  in  all  things. 
Strangely  enough,  considering  their  family  life, 
matrimonial  alliances  occasionally  come  to  be  busi- 
ness transactions,  and  professional  matchmakers 
are  not  infrequently  resorted  to.  In  such  cases 
trading  ability  is  more  valued  in  the  spouse  than 
domestic  traits. 

The  Negroes  in  the  West  End  are  not,  on  the 
whole,  in  a  congested  district,  although  instances 
where  lodgers  are  crowded  in  with  a  family  are 
not  unknown  among  them.  Such  a  practice  is  at 
best  conducive  neither  to  health  nor  to  morality; 
but  it  is  especially  deleterious  to  the  Negroes,  for 
any  indiscriminate  mingling  of  the  sexes  serves 
only  to  increase  their  natural  tendency  to  im- 
morality. Most  of  the  tenements  occupied  by 
Negroes  are  poor,  though  they  are  generally  kept 
clean.  Single  men  among  them  are  lodged  in 
much  less  desirable  quarters  than  white  men  who 
are  receiving  the  same  wages.  Signs  of  prosperity 
take   the   shape   of    decorations    of    the   person. 


66  AMEBICANS  IN  PEOCESS 

Economy  in  home  comforts  and  lavishness  in  out- 
ward display  is  often  a  characteristic  of  the  poorer 
classes,  but  it  is  carried  to  its  last  extreme  by  the 
Negroes. 

The  Irish  of  the  North  End,  for  the  most  part, 
do  not  represent  the  best  qualities  of  their  race.  A 
small  minority  are  of  the  more  progressive  kind. 
Such  families  remain  on  account  of  owning  real 
estate,  or  because  the  young  men  have  political 
interests ;  but  the  majority  are  of  the  less  enter- 
prising, who  have  not  shown  the  ability  to  rise,  — 
for  the  Irish  in  the  North  End  are  not  recent  im- 
migrants. Many,  it  must  be  feared,  have  joined 
the  ranks  of  the  permanently  poor.  But,  being 
older  residents,  and  speaking  the  English  language, 
they  stand  to  the  later  immigrants  as  the  native 
type,  unfortunately  not  always  to  the  profit  of  the 
American  reputation.  The  Irish  in  the  West  End 
are,  in  general,  more  intelligent  and  prosperous, 
and  resemble  more  nearly  those  in  the  South  End. 
They  have  made  progress  in  every  way,  and  by  their 
remarkable  race  trait  of  adaptability  they  have  con- 
formed in  a  great  degree  to  American  ways. 

The  lodging-house  population  in  the  West  End 
differs  but  little  from  that  in  the  South  End. 
Rows  of  brick  houses  with  non-committal  fronts 
shelter  a  population  of  all  shades  of  character  and 


THE  INVADING  UOST  67 

interests.  The  men  belong  to  the  clerk  and  artisan 
classes,  and  are  chiefly  Americans,  British- Ameri- 
cans, and  Irish.  They  represent  a  class  which  is 
trying  to  maintain  its  social  position  under  con- 
ditions which  are  no  longer  favorable.  By  post- 
poning marriage  they  succeed  in  keeping  up  an 
appearance  of  their  old  standard  in  an  atmosphere 
which  is  careless  of  the  individual,  and  in  which 
the  individual  becomes  careless  of  himself,  because 
he  has  no  strong  guiding  or  restraining  attach- 
ments. Lodging-house  life  is  at  best  temporary 
and  forms  a  poor  substitute  for  the  home.  But 
even  that  takes  the  greater  part  of  the  lodgers' 
wages,  and  too  often  normal  home  life  is  never 
realized.  Comparatively  few  marry  later  in  life. 
Temporary  unions  are  often  the  expedients  of  in- 
sufficient resources,  and  tend  to  become  a  sort  of 
recognized  institution.  Numbers  of  the  lodging- 
house  class  are  simply  being  sacrificed  industrially 
and  morally  because  of  their  inability  to  conform 
to  a  lowered  scale  of  living. 

Among  the  different  nationalities  the  Jews  are 
perhaps  making  the  most  rapid  progress  ;  and  this 
is  not  in  material  resources  alone,  for  the  advan- 
tages of  an  education  are  not  ignored.  Jewish 
children  are  among  the  brightest  in  the  schools, 
and  they  study  with  a  seriousness  which  is  foreign 


68  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

to  their  Irish  and  Italian  mates.  High  school  and 
even  college  attracts  a  large  number  of  those  whose 
means  permit.  To  most  of  the  poorer  Jews,  how- 
ever, the  desire  for  an  education  simply  does  not 
arise  before  the  all-important  question  of  making 
a  living,  and  getting  on.  Boys  go  to  school  in 
order  to  get  a  license  to  sell  papers  ;  while  both 
parents  devote  their  whole  energy  to  increasing  the 
family  resources. 

The  Italians  have  not  been  as  successful  as  the 
Jews  in  gaining  financial  headway,  but  their  pro- 
gress has  been  sufficiently  encouraging.  They  are 
developing  into  skilled  workmen  following  a  variety 
of  useful  and  productive  callings.  It  is  these 
specialized  workmen  who  form  the  more  permanent 
and  desirable  part  of  the  North  End  colony.  A 
small  number  of  better  educated  Italians  have  not 
on  the  whole  proved  to  be  a  very  desirable  class. 
They  sometimes  have  more  education  than  honesty, 
and  manage  to  live  as  parasites  on  their  inexpe- 
rienced countrymen.  At  the  other  extreme,  the 
illiterate  are  a  handicap  to  progress  in  the  Italian 
colony.  Next  to  the  Portuguese  and  Spaniards, 
the  Italians  are  the  most  illiterate  of  any  nation- 
ality in  western  Europe.  Comparatively  few  of 
the  southern  peasants  can  read  and  write  their  own 
language.     This  is  doubtless  one  reason  why  they 


THE  INVADING  HOST  59 

are  so  backward  about  learning  English,  although 
the  nature  of  their  occupations  makes  English  less 
essential  to  them  than  to  the  Jews.  It  ought  to 
be  said  that  the  cause  of  illiteracy  in  their  own 
country  is  not  so  much  a  disregard  of  education 
on  the  part  of  the  people  as  it  is  the  absence  of  a 
persistent  and  rational  policy  on  the  part  of  the 
government. 

Among  the  Portuguese,  poverty  is  an  altogether 
too  common  characteristic.  While  this  poverty 
does  not  amount  to  complete  pauperism,  assistance 
from  charitable  societies  is  very  common.  The 
most  successful  among  this  nationality  are  small 
tradesmen  and  artisans.  Sea-farino^  Portuo^uese 
form  a  small  part  of  the  North  End  colony.  Not 
a  few  families  are  dependent  upon  the  labor  of 
women,  and  their  lot  is  a  hard  one.  Yet  in  the 
matter  of  clean  homes,  the  Portuguese  stand  in 
striking  and  happy  contrast  with  the  Jews.  Por- 
tuguese of  the  first  generation  keep  to  themselves 
pretty  closely.  Their  quarrels  and  their  immorali- 
ties are  not  complained  of,  and  consequently  are, 
little  noticed.  Children  of  both  sexes,  however, 
desire  to  get  away  from  the  confinement  of  the 
home  and  work  in  factories.  Thus  in  the  second 
generation  the  isolation  of  the  Portuguese  is  over- 
come. 


60  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

The  Negroes  are  acted  upon  by  conflicting  forces. 
On  the  one  hand,  they  are  ambitious,  imitative,  and 
anxious  to  appear  like  other  people  ;  on  the  other 
hand,  certain  animal  propensities  and  the  intoxi- 
cation of  Northern  freedom  are  continual  impedi- 
ments to  their  progress,  and  tend  to  widen  the 
breach  between  them  and  those  white  people  whom 
they  wish  to  resemble.  As  the  better  class  of 
Negroes  are  leaving  the  West  End,  those  that  re- 
main are  coming  more  and  more  to  represent  un- 
desirable types,  such  as  are  found  in  the  lower  part 
of  the  South  End.  A  large  majority  of  the  Negroes 
are  poor,  and  they  are  improving  their  condition 
very  slowly.  All  except  the  oldest  are  possessed 
of  at  least  the  rudiments  of  an  education.  They 
are  proud  of  all  achievements  in  this  line,  for  it 
makes  them  more  like  other  people.  The  acquisi- 
tion of  knowledge,  however,  though  easy  for  the 
little  children,  becomes  arduous  after  a  few  years, 
and  many  drop  out  before  they  have  finished  the 
grammar  school  course.  Perhaps  their  assistance 
is  needed  for  the  support  of  the  family,  but  the 
children  themselves  say  they  do  not  get  marks 
high  enough,  and  they  do  not  like  to  go  to  school. 
Notwithstanding  the  Negroes'  desire  for  assimila- 
tion, color  remains  an  almost  insuperable  obstacle 
to   them.       Occasional   marriages   occur   between 


THE  INVADING  HOST  61 

colored  men  and  white  women,  but  they  are  of 
little  avail  in  breaking  down  the  barrier.  Such 
couples  are  usually  absorbed  by  the  Negro  race, 
although  if  they  belong  to  the  more  educated  class 
they  enter  into  natural  relationships  with  neither 
race. 

In  regard  to  identification  of  interest  and  feel- 
ing among  the  different  etlmic  groups  there  are, 
aside  from  the  Negro  problem,  many  encouraging 
features.  On  the  whole,  of  course,  progress  in 
this  direction  is  slow.  Irish  immigrants  during 
the  early  part  of  the  century  were  a  desirable  class, 
and  coming  in  smaller  numbers  they  assimilated 
with  native  Americans  pretty  readily.  Later  the 
assisted  immigration  that  followed  the  Irish  famine 
brought  an  inferior  type,  and  the  influx  into  the 
North  End  was  also  too  sudden.  The  Americans 
gradually  moved  to  other  parts  of  the  city,  and  left 
the  Irish  in  control.  The  religious  question  was 
the  chief  cause  of  ill  feeling  between  these  two 
races,  and  was  the  great  hindrance  to  easy  assimi- 
lation. 

When  the  Italians  and  Jews  became  noticeable 
factors  in  the  North  End,  they  were  received  with 
little  tolerance  by  the  Irish,  who  were  then  "  old 
inhabitants."  They  were  unwelcome  interlopers, 
and  became  subjects  of  petty  persecution.     Direct 


62  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

molestations   have  ceased,  but  there  is  little  inter- 
course between  the  groups. 

Less  friction  is  noticeable  in  the  schools  than 
anywhere  else,  although  a  schoolboy's  honor  seldom 
extends  beyond  the  limits  of  his  own  kind.  In 
social  clubs,  which  are  more  personal  affairs,  the 
nationalities  seldom  mix.  The  Jews  and  Italians 
get  along  with  each  other  better  than  either  does 
with  the  Irish.  The  dignity  of  Irish  lads  is 
somewhat  compromised  by  associating  intimately 
with  Jewish  or  Italian  boys,  and  their  wit  makes 
them  schoolboy  leaders.  One  Irish  club  voted  an 
Italian  boy  a  member  because  he  was  a  "good 
fellow,"  and  then  upon  further  consideration  voted 
him  out  again  because  he  was  an  Italian.  They 
feared  that  companionship  with  him  would  open 
the  way  to  companionship  with  other  Italian  boys. 
Jewish  boys  in  the  same  way  would  not  vote  an 
Irish  boy  into  their  clubs,  and  an  Irish  boy  would 
not  on  his  life  be  voted  in.  The  seriousness  that 
pervades  a  Jewish  boys'  club  is  depressing  to  the 
Irish  spirit.  This  is  aptly  illustrated  by  the  re- 
mark of  a  twelve-year  old  member  who,  becoming 
disgusted  with  an  endless  debate  over  parliamen- 
tary procedure,  exclaimed,  "  I  can't  idle  away  my 
wastin'  hours.  If  you  want  me  to  belong  to  this 
club  you  must  do  something."     Social  and  philan- 


THE  INVADING  HOST  63 

thropic  institutions  find  it  better  to  work  with  a 
single  nationality,  or  at  least  to  keep  the  nation- 
alities separate  as  far  as  possible. 

Political  activities  bring  about  association  among 
the  different  nationalities,  and  in  this  the  Irish 
manage  to  overcome  their  exclusiveness.  The 
Irishman  regards  politics  as  a  separate  department 
of  life.  It  is  an  end  in  itself,  and  is  undertaken 
for  its  own  sake.  To  be  sure,  he  hopes  by  its 
means  to  be  able  to  gain  a  living,  but  that  is  the 
stake  of  a  game  which  has  a  fascination  all  its 
own.  The  political  interest  of  the  Irish  people 
is  shown  not  only  in  the  large  proportion  of  Irish 
voters,  but  also  in  the  greater  activity  of  those 
voters.  They  are  not  merely  the  most  easily  or- 
ganized of  any  nationality,  but  they  are  the  most 
capable  organizers.  According  to  their  own  ac- 
count, this  pohtical  capacity  is  the  result  of  the 
struggle  for  independence  in  Ireland. 

Oppression  of  the  Jew  has  resulted  in  his  being 
gravely  deficient  in  civic  sense.  Business  is  his 
great  concern,  and  politics  is  whoUy  subsidiary 
to  it.  First  interested  in  politics  through  his  busi- 
ness associations,  business  interests  still  influence 
his  vote.  Although  the  percentage  of  Jewish 
voters  is  hardly  more  than  half  as  large  as  that  of 
the  Irish,  considering  their  short  residence  they 


64  AMERICANS  IN  PEOCESS 

make  a  very  creditable  showing.  They  are  kept 
from  becoming  organizers,  however,  by  the  mutual 
jealousies  of  their  leaders.  Consequently  the  Irish 
step  in  and  attempt  a  task  which  proves  a  strain 
even  to  their  ingenuity.  In  fact,  the  Jew  is  a 
thorn  in  the  flesh  to  the  Irish  politician.  The 
Irishman  does  not  court  the  Jew  because  he  loves 
him  so,  but  because  he  wishes  to  convince  his  much 
doubting  brother  that,  although  they  may  differ 
socially  and  religiously  and  may  be  rivals  in  busi- 
ness, it  is  entirely  possible  to  be  friends  in  the 
party  camp.  At  first  the  Jews  so  imperfectly 
understood  the  political  game  that  they  formed 
educational  clubs  to  influence  their  people  to  be- 
come naturalized,  without  regard  to  the  party 
affihations  of  the  prospective  citizens.  Such  con- 
duct is  incomprehensible  to  Irish  politicians ;  yet 
it  was  several  years  before  they  could  teach  the 
Jews  the  art  of  naturalizing  only  such  a  person 
as  would  support  the  party.  Even  now,  they 
assert,  the  Jews  have  not  the  constancy  to  foUow 
the  lead  of  those  true  friends  who  have  aided  them 
to  become  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

The  Italians  are  much  more  docile.  Although 
they  have  taken  little  real  interest  in  public  affairs, 
they  are  ready  to  follow  the  lead  of  others  and  be- 
come American  citizens.     But  most  of  the  Italians 


TEE  INVADING  HOST  65 

are  not  eligible  for  citizenship,  and  the  law  has  been 
strained  somewhat  for  their  benefit.  As  the  law 
confers  the  right  of  citizenship  upon  minors  with 
the  father's  naturalization,  Italians  are  often  able 
to  recollect,  upon  second  thought,  that  they  do  ful- 
fill the  proper  conditions  for  the  special  privilege. 
Notwithstanding  this  liberal  possibility,  a  smaller 
percentage  of  Italians  than  of  any  other  nation- 
ality possesses  the  franchise,  though  a  marked  in- 
crease of  Italian  names  on  the  local  voting  lists 
has  recently  been  made. 

The  English  and  British-Americans  assimilate 
politically  less  easily  than  might  be  expected,  consid- 
ering their  high  percentage  of  literacy  and  the  simi- 
larity of  their  institutions  with  our  own.  This  very 
similarity,  however,  awakens  a  feeling  of  rivalry 
which  is  not  evident  among  other  nationalities. 
While  immigrants  from  continental  Europe  come 
here  with  a  kind  of  preconceived  belief  in  the  per- 
fection of  American  institutions,  English  subjects 
have  a  distinct  feeling  that  their  own  are  superior, 
and  are  loath  to  become  citizens  of  a  country  which 
they  have  adopted  merely  for  economic  reasons. 
British  Provincials  are  seen  at  the  polls  less  fre- 
quently than  the  native  English,  but  this  may  be 
partly  for  the  reason  that  a  large  number  of  them 
are  only  temporary  residents  here. 


6Q  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

The  Portuguese  show  almost  as  small  a  propor- 
tion of  voters  as  the  Italians.  They  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  somewhat  longer  residence  in  this 
country  than  the  Italians,  but  on  the  other  hand 
they  are  the  most  illiterate  of  all  our  foreign  in- 
habitants. 

The  Negroes,  like  the  Jews,  show  the  lack 
of  a  tradition  of  citizenship.  They  ignore  their 
opportunities  in  political  life.  If  they  were  in  any 
sense  an  organized  body,  possessed  of  a  fraction 
of  Irish  sagacity,  they  would  be  a  more  powerful 
and  respected  people  in  public  life. 

Intermarriage  among  nationalities,  as  a  rule, 
affords  important  indications  of  the  fading  of  race 
distinctions.  Measured  by  this  standard,  the  Eng- 
lish and  British- Americans  assimilate  most  readily 
of  all,  not  excepting  the  Irish.  Both  nationalities 
have  entered  into  alliances  pretty  freely  with  the 
Irish  and  Americans,  as  well  as  with  other  races. 
The  Irish,  owing  partly  to  the  large  excess  of  fe- 
males, have  intermarried  with  almost  all  the  nation- 
alities, but  much  more  commonly  with  the  English- 
speaking  people.  Other  nationalities  residing  in 
these  districts  have  thus  far  made  comparatively 
few  outside  marriage  ties.  Italians,  particularly 
the  men,  are  beginning  to  form  unions  with  the 
Irish  and  Portuguese,  even  difference  of  language 


THE  INVADING  HOST  67 

not  forming  an  insuperable  obstacle.  A  case  in 
point  is  that  of  an  Italian  wlio  married  a  Portu- 
guese girl  when  neither  could  understand  the 
language  of  the  other.  Such  unions  have  their 
inconveniences  ;  and  they  must  be  especially  disad- 
vantageous to  the  Portuguese,  for  their  tongues  are 
their  most  common  weapon  of  defense.  Marriages 
between  Jews  and  Gentiles  are  not  unknown, 
still  they  are  infrequent  enough  to  occasion  com- 
ment whenever  they  occur.  The  most  frequent 
cases  are  those  in  which  Jewish  men  take  Irish 
or  American  wives,  although  occasionally  Jewish 
women  marry  outside  the  faith.  On  the  whole,  the 
sentiment  is  quite  strong  against  the  unions  of 
Jews  and  Gentiles,  and  such  unions  are  too  excep- 
tional to  be  cited  as  evidence  of  any  present  Jew- 
ish tendency  toward  affiliation  with  other  ethnic 
groups. 

The  separateness  of  the  Jew  has  always  been  a 
favorite  theme,  yet  something  might  be  said  on  the 
other  side.  They  are  not  so  compact  a  mass  as  is 
often  supposed.  Jews  from  different  countries 
differ  not  a  little  from  each  other.  The  Russians 
are  the  most  pronounced  type,  and  are  probably 
the  most  conservative  of  all.  The  Germans  are 
more  liberal,  and  give  support  to  the  reformed  sect. 
A  few  who  come  to  this  country  after  living  in 


68  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

England  bear  a  characteristic  impress  in  their 
speech,  and  even  seem  to  have  caught  a  certain 
sturdy  quality  from  the  English  environment.^ 
Both  the  German  and  the  English  Jews  consider 
the  Russians  much  inferior,  while  the  Russians 
are  shocked  at  the  irrehgious  deportment  of  their 
more  progressive  brethi'en.  The  isolation  of  this 
peculiar  people,  originating  in  their  religion,  is 
preserved  by  ever-present  reminders  in  all  their 
scheme  of  hfe  that  they  are  Jews.  It  is  pos- 
sible, however,  that  under  the  dissipating  force  of 
freedom  the  Jews  will  lose  much  of  their  aloof- 
ness ;  some  of  their  peculiar  traits  will  disappear, 
and  others  will  be  modified.  They  are  begin- 
ning to  enter  a  larger  number  of  occupations, 
and  are  coming  into  friendly  relations  with  out- 
siders in  business  and  in  politics.  They  drink 
beer  like  their  neighbors,  and  sometimes  sell  it. 
They  are  less  particular  about  their  Jewish  diet, 
and  an  increasing  number  are  observing  less  rigor- 
ously many  of  the  religious  ceremonies  they  for- 
merly kept  so  strictly.  As  to  their  separateness 
in  religion,  the  very  term  Christian  has  been  to 

^  English  Jews  are  said  to  have  a  nearer  resemblance  to  their 
Christian  conntrjrmen  than  to  the  members  of  their  own  race  who 
have  recently  poured  into  London  from  Russia.  See  The  Jew  in 
London,  Russell  and  Lewis,  p.  24. 


THE  INVADING  HOST  69 

them  so  long  a  synonym  for  persecution,  that  the 
aversion  which  they  have  felt  toward  the  Christian 
religion  cannot  be  wondered  at.  Many  of  them, 
however,  are  coming  to  have  a  curious  way  of 
omitting  and  ignoring  the  hated  term  as  applied 
to  Gentile  friends. 

On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  the  racial 
elements  in  the  ^orth  and  West  Ends  are  reluctant 
to  mingle  with  each  other,  but  tend  slowly  to  con- 
form to  American  ideals.  In  the  development  of 
American  patriotic  feeling,  two  of  the  chief  types 
leave  little  to  be  desired.  No  nationality  can 
show  more  loyal  Americans  among  its  numbers 
than  the  Irish.  Their  hatred  of  the  English, 
which  they  say  is  born  in  the  blood,  has  made 
them  love  their  adopted  country  the  more.  Al- 
though they  always  retain  tender  memories  of  their 
native  land,  the  freedom  with  which  they  have 
gained  access  to  American  life  has  made  their 
assimilation  thorough  and  their  loyalty  complete. 
Among  the  Italians  enthusiasm  for  their  own 
country  is  always  shown  by  fitting  observance 
of  their  national  holidays  ;  still  the  American  flag 
always  receives  equal  attention  with  their  own  in 
the  decorations.  The  children,  both  in  school 
and  in  the  boys'  and  girls '  clubs,  learn  American 
traditions  and  come  to  love  American  freedom. 


70  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

There  is  sufficient  ground  for  anxiety  in  tlie  case 
of  each  of  the  racial  groups  in  these  districts. 
The  residuum  of  the  Irish  are  in  danger  of  the 
extreme  forms  of  degradation.  It  is  unfortunate 
that  the  Italians  are  allowed  to  live  in  a  way  which 
tends  to  dwarf  their  simple  virtues,  and  which 
offers  fertile  soil  for  the  growth  of  crime.  The 
Jews  in  their  very  process  of  conformity  are  los- 
ing some  of  their  most  desirable  qualities.  Virtue 
by  tradition  is  failing  to  withstand  the  seductive 
clamor  of  the  city's  temptations.  The  Negroes, 
condemned  to  conditions  which  do  not  tend  to  ele- 
vate the  race,  too  easily  accept  their  lot.  Through 
the  social  preference  among  them  for  personal  ser- 
vice as  against  independent  labor,  they  relinquish 
the  last  possibility  of  associating  with  the  whites 
upon  the  same  plane,  and  open  wider  the  way  to 
industrial  and  moral  shiftlessness.  In  general,  the 
danger  of  the  situation  in  the  North  and  West 
Ends  is  that  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  new- 
comers, instead  of  finding  here  opportunities  of  pre- 
paration for  a  more  normal  life,  will  be  overcome 
by  their  own  numbers  and  their  isolated  situation, 
and  will  settle  back,  accepting  present  conditions 
as  their  permanent  lot. 


Map  Illustrating  the 

VARIOUS  TYPES 

of 

BUILDINGS 

in    the 

NORTH  END 

BOSTON. 


^m  TENEMENT  HOUSES 

1^^  LODGING  HOUSES 

im  APARTMENT  HOUSES 

I  I  STORES 

I  I  FACTORIES 

bi^li  DWELLINGS  OVER  STORES 

^^H  PUBLIC 


CHAPTER  IV 

CITY   AND    SLUM 

The  first  important  sanitary  problem  to  be  faced 
in  the  development  of  a  city  is  that  of  the  drain- 
age. At  the  outset  no  special  provision  is  made 
other  than  the  utilization,  in  the  simplest  manner, 
of  some  neighboring  stream  or  body  of  w^ater. 
In  Paris,  as  late  as  1750,  open  ditches  had 
served  all  purposes  of  drainage.  At  that  time  the 
little  stream  into  which  many  of  these  ditches  emp- 
tied their  foul  waters  was  covered  over,  chiefly  in 
order  to  make  more  building  space.  Up  to  a  com- 
paratively recent  period,  the  canals  of  Amsterdam 
were  stagnant  sewers.  Hamburg's  sewerage  was 
carried  into  the  Elbe  and,  until  the  cholera  epi- 
demic of  1892,  allowed  to  float  back  with  the  tide, 
polluting  the  water  supply.  The  tendency  of  both 
European  and  American  cities  has  been  to  adopt 
the  cheapest,  most  temporary  measure  in  sanita- 
tion until  forced  by  epidemics  to  a  provision  both 
more  costly  and  more  adequate. 

In  Boston,  as  late  as  the  second  decade  of  the 


72  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

nineteenth  century,  there  was  an  open  sewer  cross- 
ing the  centre  of  the  city.  Mill  Creek,  the  outlet 
of  the  old  Mill  Pond,  received  the  drainage  of  the 
higher  ground  of  the  North  End,  and  with  the 
increase  of  population  became  the  first  important 
public  nuisance  to  be  corrected  by  the  town  gov- 
ernment. Private  drainage  was  unregulated.  Each 
householder  was  at  liberty  to  construct  his  own 
system  and  to  dig  ditches  in  the  street  at  his  own 
pleasure. 

Following  the  problem  of  drainage  comes  the 
problem  of  a  pure  water  supply.  Here  again 
cities  have  usually  waited  to  be  forced  by  epidemics 
into  proper  sanitary  provisions.  At  first  public 
wells  were  sufficient.  These  were  supplanted  by 
private  wells.  Then,  as  the  possibilities  of  pollu- 
tion from  bad  drainage  became  understood,  water 
was  brought  from  the  nearest  and  most  conven- 
ient course.  With  recent  years  the  sources  have 
been  more  carefuUy  selected  and  guarded  and  the 
water  filtered. 

The  cleaning  of  the  streets  has  been  a  matter 
of  slower  development.  Not  yet  is  the  problem 
satisfactorily  solved,  although  great  improvement 
is  manifest  in  the  past  ten  years.  And  perhaps 
the  most  important  sanitary  problem  of  all,  the 
proper   housing  of  the   people,  has   waited  until 


CITY  AND  SLUM  73 

the  present  century,  with  its  enormous  advance  in 
urban  population,  to  receive  adequate  recognition. 

Previous  to  the  year  1800,  Boston  had  few  sani- 
tary regulations.  The  frequent  epidemics  came 
and  went  without  teaching  their  lessons.  There  is 
record  of  at  least  twelve  visitations  of  smallpox 
in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  In 
1722,  of  the  4549  inhabitants  living  north  of  Mill 
Creek,  2596  were  victims  of  this  disease  and  281 
died.  The  first  Board  of  Health  was  established 
in  1799  by  act  of  the  legislature.  To  this  board 
was  given  the  power  to  enter  forcibly  any  building 
or  vessel,  examine  into  all  causes  of  sickness  and 
all  nuisances,  "  and  the  same  to  destroy,  remove  or 
prevent,  as  the  case  may  require."  ^ 

With  the  incorporation  of  the  town  as  a  city 
in  1822,  and  the  advent  of  Mayor  Josiah  Quincy 
in  the  following  year,  came  the  beginning  of  a 
thorough  and  adequate  treatment  of  sanitary  prob- 
lems. A  uniform  system  of  drainage  was  estab- 
lished under  a  municipal  "  superintendent  of 
common  sewers."  Steps  were  taken  to  insure  a 
permanent  and  pure  water  supply,  owned  by  the 
city  and  under  its  control.  The  Board  of  Health 
gave  place  to  a  single  health  commissioner,  re- 
sponsible to  the  mayor  and  aldermen.  After  five 
1  Shaw,  History  of  Boston,  p.  154. 


74  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

years  of  vigorous  effort  and  struggle  in  the  courts, 
the  right  of  the  city  to  exercise  complete  juris- 
diction in  sanitary  matters  was  established  per- 
manently. 

Mayor  Quincy  paid  especial  attention  to  the 
problem  of  street  cleaning.  Previously  the  respon- 
sibility had  been  divided  between  the  householders 
and  the  Board  of  Health,  much  of  the  work  was 
done  by  private  contract,  and  the  results  were  very 
unsatisfactory.  The  mayor  determined  on  an 
effective  object  lesson.  He  secured  an  outfit  of 
carts  and  horses,  expended  $1400,  and  removed 
three  thousand  tons  of  dirt  from  the  city  streets 
at  one  cleaning.  The  result  convinced  the  city 
of  the  need  of  permanent  municipal  control. 
The  falling  of  the  death  rate  of  1827  below  the 
rate  of  any  previous  year,  even  below  that  of  any 
city  of  equal  population  on  record,  was  the  crown- 
ing tribute  to  the  effectiveness  of  the  administra- 
tion. 

In  order  that  the  housing  problem  of  later  days 
may  be  understood,  it  is  necessary  that  its  roots 
in  sanitary  conditions  should  be  made  clear.  Bad 
drainage,  impure  water,  and  unclean  streets  gave 
rise  to  epidemics ;  these  epidemics  were  most 
violent  in  overcrowded  and  improperly  drained 
and  ventilated   houses.     The  attention  drawn   to 


CITY  AND  SLUM  75 

such  houses,  usually  inhabited  by  the  poorest  of  the 
people,  developed  a  more  comprehensive  study  of 
housing  conditions  and  an  effort  to  remedy  the 
defects.  Some  of  the  evils  of  bad  housing  have 
come  only  with  the  later  growth  of  the  cities,  and 
could  not  have  been  foreseen.  But  the  problem 
as  a  whole  would  never  have  become  so  serious 
had  the  people  of  Boston  persisted  in  living  up  to 
the  light  which  was  given  them  in  the  early  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

There  are  four  well-defined  periods  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  sanitary  and  housing  problems  of  the 
North  and  West  Ends.  These  may  be  designated 
as  the  period  of  epidemics,  until  the  last  outbreak 
of  smallpox  in  1872  ;  the  period  of  constructive 
effort,  from  the  clearing  away  of  Fort  Hill  in  1867 
to  1889 ;  the  period  of  detailed  investigation, 
from  1889  to  1897  ;  and  the  present  period,  with 
its  enlarged  municipal  powers,  beginning  in 
1898. 

As  early  as  1678  the  Reverend  Thomas  Thacher 
put  forth  a  broadside  entitled  "  A  Brief  Rule  to 
guide  the  Common  People  of  New  England  how 
to  order  themselves  and  theirs  in  the  Small  Pocks, 
or  Measles."  It  remained  for  another  clergyman, 
the  Reverend  Joseph  Tuckerman,  minister  at  large 
from  1826,  and  founder  of   the  Benevolent  Era- 


76  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

ternity  of  Churches,  to  cry  out  against  the  over- 
crowded and  miserable  tenements  and  the  inhabited 
cellars.  When  the  smallpox  appeared  in  1824, 
and  the  Asiatic  cholera  for  the  first  time  in  1832, 
the  city  was  already  aware  of  the  local  causes  that 
aided  the  spread  of  the  contagion.  Many  years 
passed,  however,  before  those  causes  were  remedied. 
Fifty  thousand  dollars  were  appropriated  to  stay 
the  first  attack  of  cholera,  and  a  general  fast  day 
appointed.  But  the  overcrowding  and  filth  re- 
mained. 

The  census  of  1845  gave  the  city  a  total  popu- 
lation of  114,366.  Wards  5  and  6,  in  the  West 
End,  had  the  fewest  inhabitants  to  a  house 
(8.4) ;  while  Ward  2,  the  eastern  part  of  the 
North  End,  and  Ward  8,  the  eastern  part  of 
the  Fort  Hill  district,  near  by,  had  17.79  and  19.15, 
respectively.  The  average  for  the  city  was  10.57. 
"  Less  than  one  third  of  the  houses  in  the  city  and 
none  of  the  houses  in  the  North  End  took  aque- 
duct water ;  and  many  houses  were  not  connected 
with  the  city  sewerage  system.'*  ^ 

These  facts  made  it  easy  to  predict  the  territory 
which  would  be  most  afflicted  by  the  next  epidemic. 
In  1848  one  of  the  city  physicians  published  a 
statement  which  ought  to  have  aroused  the  city. 

1  Bushee,  Growth  of  the  Population  of  Boston. 


Map  Illustrating 

VARIOUS 
of 
BUILDINGS 


TENEMENT  HOUSES 
LODGING  HOUSES 

limill  APARTMENT  HOUSES 

L  I  STORES 

I I  FACTORIES 

^^^  DWELLINGS  OVER  STORES 


CITY  AND  SLUM  77 

He  said :  "  Tlie  dwellings  of  the  poor  are  mostly 
filthy,  often  from  neglect  on  the  part  of  the  land- 
lords, who  get  large  rents  and  do  not  provide  suit- 
able drains,  privies,  yards,  etc.  Municipal  regu- 
lation is  far  from  effective.  We  need  a  health 
commissioner  who  should  be  dictator  and  turn 
out  any  excess  of  population  from  houses  and 
streets." 

In  spite  of  these  warnings  conditions  were  not 
improved,  and  in  1849  the  Asiatic  cholera  raged 
for  the  second  time.  According  to  the  report  of 
a  "  Committee  on  Internal  Health "  made  after 
the  epidemic  had  run  its  course,  those  sections  of 
the  city  nearest  sea-level,  the  least  perfect  in  drriin- 
age,  the  worst  ventilated,  and  the  most  crowded  and 
filthy,  were  the  most  afflicted.  Especial  mention 
is  made  of  the  Fort  Hill  neighborhood,  which  is 
called  the  worst  spot  in  the  city.  A  nest  of  mis- 
erable tenements  at  the  corner  of  Stilhuan  and 
Endicott  streets  was  described  as  "  filled  to  over- 
flowing with  a  most  vicious  and  miserable  popu- 
lation." In  the  rear  of  136  Hanover  Street  there 
were  twelve  deaths  in  two  days  out  of  50  inhab- 
itants. Altogether  there  were  about  114  deaths 
in  the  North  End  and  66  in  the  West  End  durinsf 
the  four  months  of  the  disease.  The  whole  num- 
ber of  deaths  throughout  the  city  was  611. 


78  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

In  connection  with  the  report  there  is  a  vivid 
description  of  the  cellar  dwellings,  586  of  which 
were  then  occupied,  usually  sheltering  from  five  to 
fifteen  persons  in  each.  The  police  had  reported 
one  cellar  as  the  sleeping  apartment  of  thirty- 
nine  persons.  "In  another,"  wrote  the  city 
physician,  "  the  tide  had  risen  so  high  that  it  was 
necessary  to  approach  the  bedside  of  a  patient 
by  means  of  a  plank  which  was  laid  from  one  stool 
to  another  ;  while  the  dead  body  of  an  infant  was 
actually  sailing  about  the  room  in  its  coffin.  Many 
of  the  inhabited  cellars  are  inundated  by  the  back- 
water of  the  drains  during  high  tides  ;  and  being 
entirely  below  the  level  of  the  sidewalks,  they  are 
almost  entirely  without  light  and  ventilation.  But 
far  from  being  considered  a  hardship,  a  residence 
in  them  is  considered  preferable  to  loftier  apart- 
ments. They  are  said  to  be  cooler  in  summer  and 
warmer  in  winter,  and  consequently  command 
higher  rents."  ^ 

Five  years  later,  cholera  appeared  for  the  third 
time.  Keith's  Alley  and  the  Fort  Hill  dis- 
trict were  the  centres  of  its  greatest  virulence. 
An  attempt  was  made  by  the  Board  of  Health, 
namely,  the  mayor  and  aldermen,  who  had  dis- 
possessed the  single  health  commissioner  in  1850, 

1  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Internal  Health,  Boston,  1849. 


CITY  AND  SLUM  79 

to  remedy  matters  by  vacating  the  most  obnox- 
ious buildings.  The  tenants  did  not  choose  to  be 
ejected,  and  there  were  many  contests  between 
them  and  the  police  in  the  effort  to  enforce  sani- 
tary measures.  As  a  result,  such  measures  were 
not  thorouglily  enforced. 

The  period  of  epidemics  culminated  with  the 
fearful  outbreak  of  smallpox  in  1872.  There 
was  no  suitable  hospital  for  contagious  diseases. 
The  city  officials  charged  three  dollars  for  fumigat- 
ing one  room  and  five  dollars  for  a  tenement.  As 
a  result,  the  most  needy  houses  were  neglected: 
738  persons  died  of  the  epidemic  in  1872,  and 
302  in  1873,  out  of  a  total  of  3700  cases.  It  was 
made  clear  that  the  sanitary  administration  of 
the  city  was  inadequate.  Although  the  mayor 
and  aldermen  called  upon  an  unpaid  advisory 
board  of  physicians  for  aid  in  times  of  epidemic, 
they  often  took  offense  at  advice ;  and  the  physi- 
cians, finding  that  the  measures  they  recommended 
were  not  carried  out,  refused  to  serve.  Mayor 
Gaston  led  the  movement  for  a  separate  Board  of 
Health,  independent  of  politics  and  composed  of 
quahfied  men.  In  1873,  under  the  pressure  of 
the  smallpox  epidemic,  the  City  Council  was 
obliged  to  yield  its  opposition,  and  such  a  board 
was  established. 


80  AMEBIC  AN  S  IN   PROCESS 

The  period  of  constructive  effort  in  sanitation  and 
housino^  bes^an  with  the  removal  of  Fort  Hill.  The 
territory  now  bounded  by  Pearl,  Milk,  and  Broad 
streets  was  cut  down  an  average  of  twenty-five 
feet,  the  highest  point  being  fifty  feet  above  the 
present  level.  Although  commercial  reasons,  such 
as  the  demand  of  business  upon  the  district  and 
the  need  of  soil  for  the  filling  in  of  Albany  Street, 
were  the  chief  reasons  for  the  improvement,  yet 
the  fact  that  for  over  twenty  years  Fort  Hill  had 
been  pointed  out  as  the  most  overcrowded  and 
unsanitary  spot  in  the  city  undoubtedly  weighed 
heavily  in  favor  of  its  removal.  The  work  was  be- 
gun in  October,  1866,  and  finished  in  July,  1872, 
at  a  cost  of  11,575,000. 

Previous  to  this  time  very  little  had  been  done 
in  the  way  of  improved  tenement-house  construc- 
tion. Dr.  Tuckerman  had  advocated  building 
suburban  houses,  thinking  that  by  getting  many  of 
the  poor  out  of  the  overcrowded  districts  it  would 
be  comparatively  easy  to  care  for  those  that  re- 
mained. On  the  other  hand,  a  committee  appointed 
at  a  public  meeting  on  June  12,  1846,  to  consider 
the  expediency  of  providing  better  tenements  for 
the  poor,  reported  that  the  poor  would  not  go  out 
of  the  city,  and  that  it  was  quite  practicable  to 
build  sanitary  tenement  houses  in  the  city  which 


CITY  AND  SLUM  81 

would  yield  a  fair  return  on  the  investment. 
Beyond  a  few  sporadic  attempts  with  single  houses, 
nothing  seems  to  have  resulted  from  either  of  these 
suggestions  until  1871.  In  that  year  the  Boston 
Cooperative  Building  Company  was  organized  with 
a  capital  of  1200,000.  Its  object  was  to  provide 
homes  at  moderate  rates  :  first,  by  building  new 
tenements ;  second,  by  cleaning  and  remodel- 
ing old  tenements  ;  and  third,  by  erecting  small 
houses  in  the  country  to  be  sold  on  monthly  install- 
ments. It  was  probably  expected  that  the  third 
of  these  three  methods  of  improving  housing  con- 
ditions would  be  the  most  successful.  This  has 
not  proved  to  be  the  case;  but  the  first  two 
methods  have  been  carried  out  with  excellent 
results.  Three  estates  owned  by  the  company  in 
the  North  and  West  Ends,  including  old  houses 
remodeled  as  well  as  new  houses  especially  con- 
structed, provide  acconmaodations  for  eighty-four 
families,  at  a  weekly  rental  varying  from  seventy- 
seven  to  eighty-five  cents  per  room.  In  1900  the 
net  profit  of  one  of  these  estates,  based  on  the  .  . 
present  valuation,  amounted  to  seven  per  cent.,  and  I  I  O  ^^ 
of  another  eight  per  cent.  The  company  has  paid 
to  its  stockholders  annual  dividends  ranging  from 
three  to  seven  per  cent,  in  all  but  five  or  six  years 
of  its  existence.     The  present  rate  is  five  per  cent. 


82  AMEBIC  AN  S  IN  PROCESS 

Another  form  of  constructive  effort  is  illustrated 
in  the  work  of  Mrs.  Alice  N.  Lincoln,  who  has 
leased  and  managed  various  large  tenement  houses 
in  the  West  End.  One  of  the  most  important  of 
these  houses  was  taken  in  1879,  thoroughly  cleaned 
and  ventilated,  and  rented  to  the  poorer  class  of 
tenants.  By  careful  supervision,  the  house  still 
continues  to  yield  a  fair  return  over  expenses. 
Similar  results  have  been  achieved  in  other  private 
enterprises. 

State  legislation,  at  first  in  1868  copied  from  a 
New  York  law  of  the  previous  year  and  later  re- 
modeled, gave  the  new  Board  of  Health  ample 
power  to  regulate  sanitary  conditions.  In  1885 
was  passed  the  act  in  relation  to  the  preservation 
of  health  in  buildings  in  the  city  of  Boston,  com- 
monly called  the  "  Boston  Health  Act,"  and  sub- 
stantially in  force  at  the  present  time.  It  expli- 
citly prescribes  all  that  is  necessary  in  the  matter 
of  cleanliness  and  drainage,  the  removal  of  refuse, 
the  care  and  ventilation  of  rooms  and  passages. 
It  also  regulates  overcrowding  and  the  habitation 
of  cellars. 

But  notwithstanding  better  machinery  and  strin- 
gent legislation,  the  slums  of  the  city  multiplied 
from  year  to  year.  Not  yet  had  the  remedies  been 
sufficiently  radical.     The   effort  to   clean  up  un- 


CITY  AND  SLUM  83 

wholesome  spots  did  not  prevent  evil  conditions 
from  constantly  recurring.  The  time  had  come 
for  a  more  thorough  study  of  bad  housing  with  a 
view  to  prevention.  Boston  entered  in  1889  upon 
the  period  of  investigation,  and  during  the  follow- 
ing nine  years  much  light  was  thrown  on  its  hous- 
ing problem. 

The  first  thorough  investigation,  apart  from  the 
somewhat  superficial  and  sensational  revelations 
of  occasional  newspaper  articles,  was  undertaken 
in  1889  by  Professor  D wight  Porter  of  the  Insti- 
tute of  Technology.  With  the  aid  of  half  a  dozen 
students  he  conducted  a  careful  inspection  of  910 
houses  in  six  different  wards,  containing  a  popula- 
tion of  about  12,000  persons.  He  found  overcrowd- 
ing in  203  tenement  houses,  and  made  especial  note 
of  the  condition  of  the  Italians  in  the  North  End. 
Bad  drainage  and  unclean  water-closets  were  found 
to  be  very  common.  Special  recommendations  of 
the  report  were:  the  widening  of  the  narrowest 
streets,  the  tearing  down  of  rear  buildings,  the  in- 
crease of  the  number  of  sanitary  inspectors,  the 
doing  away  with  aU  unventilated  sleeping-rooms, 
the  individual  trapping  of  all  sink  pipes,  the  vigor- 
ous supervision  of  all  plumbing  by  the  Board  of 
Health,  the  designation  of  the  number  of  occuj^ants 
to  be  allowed  in  each  house,  the  establishment  of 


84  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

open  squares  in  tenement-house  districts,  the  restric- 
tion of  the  proportion  of  a  lot  to  be  covered  by  a 
tenement  house,  and  the  prohibition  of  the  occu- 
pancy of  cellars.  It  is  an  encouraging  fact  that 
nearly  all  of  these  recommendations  have  since 
been  incorporated  in  state  and  city  laws. 

Following  this  report,  in  two  years  came  the 
elaborate  annual  reports  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor  for  1891  and  1892, 
made  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  H.  G.  Wadlin. 
They  gave  the  number  of  families  living  in  rented 
tenements  in  the  city  of  Boston,  the  rentals  paid, 
the  number  of  rooms  occupied,  the  sanitary  con- 
dition of  these  tenements,  and  other  similar  data. 
This  investigation  was  ordered  by  the  legislature, 
and  came  at  a  time  when  public  sentiment  was 
awakening  to  the  questions  involved.  Some  of  the 
facts  brought  out  concerning  the  North  and  West 
Ends  were  of  striking  interest. 

The  average  number  of  people  to  a  house  varied 
from  17.81  in  the  precinct  bounded  by  North 
Street,  North  Square,  Prince  and  Hanover  streets 
to  8.65  in  the  district  between  Chambers,  Poplar, 
Spring,  Allen,  Blossom,  and  Parkman  streets. 
Overcrowding  was  especially  noted  in  old  Ward  6, 
comprising  the  northern  and  eastern  portion  of  the 
North  End.     Here  259  families  were  reported  as 


CITY  AND  SLUM  85 

living  in  one-room  tenements,  with  an  average 
of  2.67  persons  to  a  family,  and  1154  families  in 
two-room  tenements,  with  an  average  of  3.74  to 
a  family.  The  corresponding  figures  for  the  whole 
city  were  found  to  be  an  average  of  1.96  per  family 
for  the  1053  families  in  one-room  tenements  and 
2.87  per  family  for  the  5695  families  in  two-room 
tenements. 

Outside  sanitary  conditions  —  the  cleanliness 
and  size  of  neighboring  spaces,  the  exposure  of  the 
house  to  the  sun,  and  the  drainage  of  the  surround- 
ing district  —  were  distinguished  from  inside  sani- 
tary conditions,  such  as  light,  ventilation,  cleanliness 
of  water-closets  and  cellars.  Every  house  was  clas- 
sified in  respect  to  both  outside  and  inside  sanitary 
conditions  as  either  "  excellent,"  "  good,"  "  fair," 
"  poor,"  or  "  bad."  The  following  statistics  con- 
cerning the  houses  classed  as  "  bad  "  in  the  North 
and  West  Ends  revealed  a  situation  that  needed 
vigorous  remedy :  — 

North  End.  West  End. 

Whole  number  of  families                            4942  4435 

Number  with  bad  outside  conditions             199  lo7 

Number  with  bad  inside  conditions                129  88 

Number  with  all  conditions  bad                       52  84 

The  specific  location  of  nearly  all  the  houses  with 
bad  inside  conditions,  an  evil  which,  as  Mr.  Wadlin 


86  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

said,  rests  primarily  upon  the  landlord,  was  as  fol- 
lows :  On  Battery  Street,  ten  houses ;  Charter 
Street,  fourteen  ;  Crescent  Place,  fourteen  ;  Merri- 
mac  Street,  thirty  ;  Norman  Street,  fifteen ;  North 
Street,  sixteen ;  North  Margin  Street,  fifteen ;  South 
Margin  Street,  fifty-one ;  Cusson  Place,  eight. 

Although  the  report  did  not  disclose  housing 
conditions  as  bad  in  proportion  as  those  in  New 
York  City,  yet  it  was  clearly  an  indictment,  and 
established  the  fact  that  the  tenement  houses  of 
Boston  had  been  too  much  neglected.  The  fact 
that  522  families  were  foimd  in  the  city  living 
in  wholly  bad  sanitary  conditions  both  outside 
and  inside  showed  that  the  municipal  authority 
to  vacate  unsanitary  dwellings  had  not  been  suf- 
ficiently exercised.  In  fact,  the  official  reports  of 
the  Board  of  Health  reveal  this ;  for  in  1891  only 
eleven  houses  were  actually  vacated;  in  1892  none 
at  all ;  in  1893  twenty-one ;  and  in  1894  twenty- 
six. 

Public  sentiment  revealed  itself  in  the  formation 
in  1892  of  the  Better  Dwellings  Society  for  the 
purpose  of  aiding  "  in  improving  the  sanitary  con- 
dition of  Boston,  and  especially  of  its  tenement 
houses."  For  two  years  this  society  did  good 
service  in  gathering  and  publishing  lists  of  unsan- 
itary tenement  houses  and  private  alleys.     As  a 


CITY  AND  SLUM  87 

result  of  a  hearing  granted  to  the  society  by  the 
Board  of  Health,  a  considerable  number  of  the 
worst  houses,  many  of  them  in  the  North  End,  were 
ordered  vacated. 

The  City  Council  felt  the  pressure  of  public 
sentiment,  and  in  1895  and  1896  appointed  com- 
mittees to  report  on  the  improvement  of  the  tene- 
ment houses.  The  first  of  these  committees  went 
so  far  as  to  say  that  "  In  the  North  End  the 
tenement  houses  are  to-day  a  serious  menace  to 
public  health."  But  no  adequate  remedies  were 
suggested,  and  the  superficial  character  of  the  re- 
port showed  that  the  situation  was  not  taken  seri- 
ously. The  report  of  the  second  committee  was 
even  less  satisfactory. 

Private  enterprise  proved  more  efficient.  In 
1898  an  investigation  made  for  the  Tenement 
House  Committee  of  the  Twentieth  Century  Club 
by  Mr.  H.  K.  Estabrook  was  in  some  respects  the 
most  effective  for  good  results  of  all  that  had  been 
undertaken.  Several  hundred  houses  in  many 
parts  of  the  city  were  visited,  and  sixty-eight  of  the 
most  typical  selected  for  description.  A  pamphlet 
was  published  giving  drawings  of  the  ground  plans 
of  many  of  these  houses,  with  an  account  of  their 
bad  drainage,  uncleanliness,  and  general  condition 
when  visited. 


88  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

This  report  ^  attracted  much  attention,  and  was 
extensively  copied  in  the  public  press.  It  revealed 
in  an  authoritative  manner  a  situation  which  de- 
manded official  action.  Public  sentiment  was 
aroused  by  the  report.  The  municipal  authorities 
recoofnized  that  the  time  had  come  for  a  more  rad- 
ical  treatment  of  the  slum  problem.  At  a  public 
hearing,  granted  by  the  Board  of  Health  in  June, 
1898,  to  a  considerable  number  of  citizens  who 
petitioned  to  have  the  slums  that  had  been  men- 
tioned in  Mr.  Estabrook's  report,  as  well  as 
others,  effectively  dealt  with.  Mayor  Quincy  ap- 
peared in  person  and  told  the  members  of  the 
board  that  he  would  support  an  active  crusade  on 
their  part. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  period  of 
enlarged  municipal  activity.  Preparation  had  been 
made  not  only  in  the  investigations  of  the  previous 
twenty  years,  but  especially  in  the  new  power  to 
demolish  unsanitary  buildings,  granted  to  the  Board 
of  Health  by  the  legislature  of  1897.  The  origin 
of  this  act  of  the  legislature  is  to  be  found  in  the 
English  "  Housing  of  the  Working  Classes  "  Act  of 
1890.  Previous  to  that  year  there  had  been  much 
accomplished  in  English  cities  in  the  clearing  of 
slum  areas ;    but  it   had   always   been   necessary 

1  Estabrook,  Some  Slums  in  Boston,  1898. 


CITY  AND  SLUM  89 

for  the  municipality  to  buy  the  unsanitary  property 
at  exorbitant  prices.  The  Act  of  1890  remedied 
this  defect  and  made  it  possible  for  local  authori- 
ties to  take  such  property  by  compulsory  purchase, 
paying  no  more  than  a  fair  market  value,  less  the 
amount  necessary  to  put  the  property  in  good  san- 
itary condition.  A  similar  law  was  passed  by  the 
New  York  Assembly  in  1895.  With  the  new 
Massachusetts  law  of  1897  behind  them,  and  the 
aroused  public  sentiment  sustaining  them,  the 
health  authorities  proceeded  to  order  demolished 
many  of  the  worst  buildings  in  the  city.  During 
the  four  years  since  the  passage  of  the  law,  over 
150  dwelling-houses  and  80  stables  have  been 
torn  down.  So  far  no  damages  have  been  paid, 
and  not  until  the  summer  of  1901  did  an  expro- 
priated property  owner  carry  his  case  into  the 
courts.  By  condemning  only  the  worst  buildings, 
the  Board  of  Health  has  not  yet  found  anything 
due  the  owners  on  account  of  the  buildings,  after 
deducting  from  their  market  value  the  expense  of 
tearing  them  down. 

The  result  of  clearing  away  or  remodeling  old 
and  unsanitary  buildings  has  usually  been  a  per- 
manent improvement.  This  may  be  illustrated  by 
three  examples  typical  of  the  changes  which  are 
taking  place  in  the  crowded  sections  of  the  city. 


90  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

The  first  method  is  that  of  opening  up  a  play- 
ground or  park  where  there  has  been  a  nest  of 
overcrowded  and  miserable  houses.  A  good  illus- 
tration of  this  is  the  playground  between  North 
Bennett  and  Prince  streets,  adjoining  the  Paul 
Eevere  School.  In  this  space,  now  permanently 
cleared,  were  formerly  twenty-five  or  more  houses, 
nearly  all  of  which  had  become  unfit  for  habitation. 
A  number  of  small  alleys  ran  into  this  area  from 
the  streets  mentioned  ;  otherwise  almost  the  whole 
of  the  ground  was  covered.  This  undertaking 
involved  the  purchase  of  11,384  square  feet  of 
land  in  addition  to  the  schoolhouse  site.  Another 
instance  was  the  clearing  of  the  area  north  of  the 
Copp's  Hill  burying-ground  for  the  present  Copp's 
HiU  Terrace  and  North  End  Park.  Here  seven 
acres  have  been  made  available  for  purposes  of 
rest  and  recreation. 

The  second  type  of  improvement  is  shown  in  the 
replacing  of  a  group  of  unsanitary  houses  by  a  single 
tenement  house  or  a  tenement-house  block.  This 
is  well  illustrated  on  Fleet  Street,  between  North 
and  Hanover,  where  there  was  formerly  a  cluster 
of  ten  wooden  and  brick  houses  on  either  side  of 
Clifford  Place  and  the  adjoining  alley.  Mr.  Esta- 
brook,  in  1898,  described  the  houses  on  Clifford 
Place  as  follows :  "In  none  of  the  houses  is  there 


AFTER     #S 


0     5    10    15  20  25  30 


BEFORE 


Shop      --^^r^u^^y^    ^*m 
Illustration  of  Housing  Changes 

( Second  Type ) 


CITY  AND  SLUM  91 

any  tliorougli  ventilation ;  air  shafts  were  not 
thought  of  when  these  houses  were  built.  Though 
the  sun  shines  into  some  rooms  on  the  top  floors,  all 
the  lower  rooms  are  very  dark.  From  cellar  to  roof, 
each  house  is  very  dirty  and  battered.  In  many 
rooms  pieces  of  the  ceiling  have  already  fallen, 
and  more  is  apparently  about  to  fall.  The  wooden 
houses  on  both  sides  of  the  alleys  shake  so  much  as 
one  walks  about  them,  and  their  floors  are  so  far 
from  level,  that  it  is  surprising  that  they  have  not 
collapsed,  in  spite  of  the  support  given  them  by  the 
adjoining  buildings."  ^  These  buildings  were  ordered 
demolished  by  the  Board  of  Health.  The  owner 
of  the  property  obeyed  the  order,  and  upon  the  area 
thus  cleared  has  erected  one  large  five-story  brick 
house  with  accommodation  for  forty  families.  This 
house  is  not  what  a  building  for  so  large  a  number 
of  people  ought  to  be.  Its  halls  are  narrow  and 
much  too  dark,  and  there  are  but  two  main  en- 
trances for  all  who  live  in  the  building.  But  in 
point  of  physical  healthfulness  there  is  undoubtedly 
a  change  for  the  better.  A  similar  illustration  of 
this  type  of  improvement  is  the  wiping  out  of 
Kenna  Place,  leading  off  Grove  Street  between 
Phillips  and  Revere  streets  in  the  West  End.  At 
the    present    time  a  block   of    apartment    houses 

Estabrook,  Some  Slums  in  Boston,  p.  16. 


92  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

covers    tlie    area    wliere   formerly  were    wretched 
rookeries. 

The  third  type  of  permanent  improvement  is  the 
remodeling  of  an  unsanitary  block  so  radically  as 
to  make  it  habitable.  This  is  well  illustrated  in 
the  notorious  Keith's  Alley,  leading  from  North 
Street  towards  Hanover.  In  1898  a  block  of  three 
three-story  brick  houses  on  the  left  had  no  rear 
ventilation  other  than  that  gained  by  two  small  air 
shafts  covered  in  at  the  top.  Towering  above  the 
block  in  the  rear  were  brick  buildings  four  and  a 
half  and  six  stories  high.  Across  the  alley,  about 
eleven  feet  distant,  was  a  block  of  two  three-story 
wooden  buildings,  whose  only  rear  windows  opened 
on  a  narrow  crack  between  them  and  a  five-story 
brick  warehouse.  The  only  water-closets  for  these 
blocks  were  in  the  open  space  at  the  upper  end  of 
the  alley.  The  Board  of  Health  ordered  the  houses 
vacated.  The  owners  of  the  property  then  pro- 
ceeded to  make  radical  changes.  A  large  section 
was  cut  out  of  the  centre  of  the  brick  block,  giving 
light  and  ventilation  to  the  rear  rooms  of  the  inner 
houses.  The  closets  were  taken  out  of  the  yard. 
New  closets,  with  suitable  plumbing,  were  put  into 
each  house  and  opened  on  the  air  shafts,  which  were 
themselves  opened  at  the  top  to  the  outer  air. 
Similar  changes  were  made  in  the  wooden  block  on 


CITY  AND  SLUM  93 

the  right  of  the  alley.  Both  blocks  may  now  be 
considered  as  at  least  out  of  the  worst  class. 

Cheap  lodging-houses,  which  are  more  numerous 
in  the  North  and  West  Ends  than  in  other  parts  of 
the  city,  have  of  late  years  engaged  the  attention 
of  the  Board  of  Health,  and  some  extremely  salutary 
changes  have  been  effected.  Many  of  the  most 
objectionable  have  been  closed.  By  stringent  regu- 
lations and  constant  supervision,  the  remainder  are 
now  fairly  clean  and  well  ventilated,  and  supplied 
with  cleanly  furnishings.  Overcrowding  has  been 
to  a  large  extent  prevented  by  nocturnal  visits  on 
the  part  of  the  health  authorities. 

The  "  lanes,"  "  alleys,"  and  "  courts  "  of  the  city 
are,  according  to  a  recent  report  of  the  Health  De- 
partment, "  in  a  bad  sanitary  condition  and  subject 
to  a  great  deal  of  complaint."  The  difficulty  lies 
in  the  proper  adjustment  of  responsibility  for  their 
cleanliness,  since  they  are  private  property.  Un- 
cleanly habits  of  their  owners  keep  many  of  these 
open  spaces  in  a  most  undesirable  condition.  Not 
until  the  street-cleaning  department  of  the  city 
shall  have  the  entire  authority  to  clean  them  at  the 
abutters'  expense  will  the  difficulty  be  satisfactorily 
overcome. 

Some  of  the  facts  concerning  disease  and  death 
in  the  city  will  indicate  the  present  need  of  in- 


94  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

creased  sanitary  effort.  During  1900  Boston's 
population  was  560,892,  and  11,670  deaths  were 
reported.  This  would  make  the  city  death-rate  for 
the  year  20.81  per  thousand  inhabitants,  or  one 
in  each  48.06.  This  death-rate  has  been  lowered 
in  only  four  of  the  last  fifty  years,  two  of  these 
four  years  being  1898  and  1899.  Ward  6,  in  the 
North  End,  shows  the  largest  number  of  deaths 
under  one  year  of  age,  184,  or  8.74  per  cent,  of  the 
whole  number  of  deaths  under  one  year ;  and  the 
largest  number  of  deaths  between  one  and  five 
years,  177,  or  13.7  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number 
of  deaths  between  one  and  five  years.  The  death- 
rate  in  Ward  6  was  one  in  each  41  ;  in  the  whole 
city  one  in  each  48.  In  Ward  8,  of  the  West  End, 
where  the  adult  lodging-house  population  lowers 
the  rate,  it  was  one  in  each  58.  In  Ward  25,  a 
suburban  district,  the  rate  was  one  in  each  81. 
Wards  7  and  13  show  a  total  death-rate  slightly 
higher  than  Ward  6,  though  in  the  mortality  of 
children  under  five  years,  the  North  End  is  far  in 
excess  of  any  other  section. 

In  the  matter  of  specific  diseases  Ward  6  is  not- 
able again  in  having  the  largest  total  number  of 
deaths  from  pneumonia,  meningitis,  typhoid  fever, 
and  diphtheria;  and  the  second  largest  number 
of  deaths  from  cholera  infantum  and  bronchitis. 


CITY  AND  SLUM  95 

This  ward  also  leads  in  homicides.  In  Ward  8 
the  mortality  figures  are  not  so  striking,  although 
its  percentage  for  deaths  of  children  between  one 
and  five  years  of  age  is  exceeded  in  only  two  other 
wards.  This  ward  leads  in  the  total  number  of 
deaths  from  diseases  of  the  heart,  and  is  second 
only  to  Ward  6  in  the  total  number  of  deaths  from 
pneumonia.  These  wards  do  not  have  so  large  a 
number  of  deaths  from  consumption  as  do  several 
other  wards  of  the  city.  Consumption  specially 
afflicts  the  Irish  in  the  severe  New  England  climate, 
and  makes  its  greatest  ravages  where  they  are  most 
numerous. 

Wards  6  and  8  lead  with  1386  and  1033  births, 
respectively,  out  of  a  total  of  16,351.  Ward  11,  in 
the  Back  Bay,  reported  only  238.  That  is  to  say, 
in  Ward  6,  of  the  North  End,  there  was  one  birth 
to  every  22  of  the  population ;  in  Ward  8,  of  the 
West  End,  one  in  every  28 ;  and  in  Ward  11,  of 
the  Back  Bay,  one  in  every  81. 

It  has  been  thought  by  some  students  of  the 
housing  problem  that  the  tenement-house  conges- 
tion in  the  North  and  West  Ends  would  be  relieved 
by  the  building  of  smaU  houses  in  the  suburbs  and 
the  cheapening  of  transit  facilities.  Dorchester 
and  West  Roxbury  have  shown  great  gains  in  pop- 
ulation since  1895,  and  a  large  number  of  small 


96  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

houses  Lave  been  built  in  these  sections.  But  it 
remains  true  that  Ward  8,  of  the  West  End,  in- 
creased in  population  during  the  same  period  faster 
than  any  other  section  of  the  city,  except  the  two 
suburbs  named.  It  now  has  the  distinction  of  con- 
taining the  largest  number  of  persons  to  the  acre, 
173.6.  Ward  9,  in  the  South  End,  ranks  second, 
with  132.2,  and  Ward  6  third,  with  104.3.  The 
relative  growth  of  these  two  wards  may  be  shown 
as  follows  :  — 

1895.  1900. 

Ward  6 27,860  30,546 

Ward  8 23,130  28,817 


60,990  69,363 

The  same  figures  for  Dorchester  and  West  Eox- 
bury  are  as  follows  :  — 

1895.  1900. 

Wards  20  and  24  (Dorchester)      39,768  69,682 

Ward  23  (West  Roxbury)  18,283  23,637 


68,051  83,319 

Let  it  be  noted,  however,  that  the  acreage  of 
Dorchester  is  5590  and  of  West  Roxbury  7660. 
There  were  in  1900  only  10.6  persons  to  the  acre 
in  Dorchester,  as  compared  with  104.3  in  the  North 
End,  and  3.1  persons  to  the  acre  in  West  Roxbury, 
in  contrast  with  the  173.6  of  the  West  End. 
Evidently  the  time  is  far  in  the  future  when  the 


CITY  AND  SLUM  97 

cheaper  rates  in  food  and  the  pleasures  of  asso- 
ciation with  one's  kind  can  be  overcome  by  the 
attractions  of  healthier  surroundings  and  suburban 
houses.  The  tenement-house  problem  of  the  North 
and  West  Ends  is  destined  to  be  a  vital  one  for 
many  years  to  come. 

In  this  connection  a  few  figures  from  the  United 
States  census  of  1900  will  be  instructive.  The 
percentage  of  Boston  dwellings  containing  three 
or  more  families  is  19.9.  In  1890  it  was  17.2. 
Ward  6  is  reported  as  having  an  average  of 
3.3  families  to  a  dwelling ;  Ward  8,  2.8.  These 
are  the  largest  averages  among  the  wards,  the 
average  for  the  whole  city  being  1.8.  Of  the  whole 
number  of  families  in  the  city,  41.3  per  cent,  live 
in  dwellings  containing  three  or  more  families,  as 
against  37.5  per  cent,  in  1890.  In  Ward  6,  out 
of  5843  families,  4754  live  in  dwellings  containing 
three  or  more  families ;  in  Ward  8,  3818  out  of 
5065  families  live  under  similar  conditions. 

The  present  condition  of  the  tenement  houses  in 
the  North  and  West  Ends  is  not  satisfactory  from 
any  point  of  view.  The  Health  Department  of 
the  city  has  not  succeeded  in  preventing  over- 
crowding, or  in  compelling  owners  to  provide  the 
necessary  ventilation  and  sanitary  arrangements. 
Although  a  considerable  number  of  the  very  worst 


98  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

houses  have  been  removed,  a  very  large  number 
of  wretched  dwellings  are  left.  They  are  not 
quite  bad  enough  to  be  condemned  without  pay- 
ment of  damages,  but  they  are  entirely  unfit  for 
human  habitation,  according  to  the  standards  set 
by  modern  sanitary  science  and  modern  ideals 
of  home  life.  In  March,  1899,  the  consulting 
architect  of  the  city  reported  to  the  mayor  the 
result  of  his  investigation  of  these  unfit  houses. 
He  described  dirty  and  battered  walls  and  ceilings, 
dark  cellars  with  water  standing  in  them,  alleys 
littered  with  garbage  and  filth,  broken  and  leaking 
drain-pipes,  interior  rooms  or  closets  and  damp 
basements  used  as  bedrooms  and  even  then  over- 
crowded, dark  and  narrow  stairways,  dark  and 
filthy  water-closets,  closets  long  frozen  or  otherwise 
out  of  order,  tenements  inadequately  lighted  and 
unventilated  because  of  high  buildings  closely  sur- 
rounding them,  and  houses  so  dilapidated  and  so 
much  settled  that  they  are  dangerous. 

In  the  fall  of  1901  the  Health  Department 
ordered  a  comprehensive  examination  of  all  tene- 
ment houses  in  the  city.  Each  inspector  reported 
the  details  in  regard  to  the  sanitary  condition  of 
every  house  in  his  district.  These  reports  have 
been  filed  with  the  department,  though  they  have 
not  been  tabulated  by  streets  and  wards,  as  they 


CITY  AND  SLUM  99 

should  be  if  they  are  to  be  of  the  greatest  value. 
A  compilation  of  the  reports  of  twenty-six  tene- 
ment houses  in  South  Margin  Street,  in  the  West 
End,  reveals  the  following  situation  :  — 

The  number  of  tenements  reported  upon  was 
118,  containing  350  rooms.  In  these  rooms  540 
persons  are  living,  though  the  number  allowed  by 
law  is  only  446.  Of  the  197  bedrooms,  97  con- 
tain less  than  600  cubic  feet  of  air  space.  Thirty- 
eight  of  the  bedrooms  are  dark  rooms,  and  33  of 
the  tenements  are  reported  as  overcrowded.  Six 
houses  are  said  to  have  defective  drainage.  Six- 
teen have  cellars  that  are  damp  or  filthy  or  both. 
Eleven  yards  are  in  bad  condition.  Nineteen  out 
of  20  garbage  receptacles  are  reported  as  defective 
or  insufficient  or  both.  Seventeen  out  of  67  water- 
closets  are  in  bad  condition.  The  name  of  the 
owner  is  posted  in  only  9  of  the  26  houses. 

It  is  to  be  said,  of  course,  that  the  personal 
habits  of  the  tenants  are  largely  responsible  for 
such  conditions,  and  that  these  habits  are  not  under 
municipal  control.  Undoubtedly  many  a  suitable 
tenement  house  is  turned  into  a  place  of  misery  by 
the  ignorance  and  vice  of  its  occupants.  Beyond 
a  certain  point  in  sanitary  regulation  the  health 
authorities  of  a  city  cannot  go.  Nevertheless  the 
housing  problem  is  one  that  cannot  be  dismissed  as 


100  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

merely  one  of  many  incidentals  under  tlie  care 
of  the  city.  It  must  receive  the  attention  it  de- 
mands. Not  only  does  the  health  of  the  city 
depend  largely  on  the  condition  of  its  tenement 
houses,  but  the  morals  as  well.  Such  a  problem 
has  become  serious  enough  to  require  the  most 
thoughtful  attention  of  able  men  and  women  who 
have  devoted  their  best  energies  to  its  solution. 
It  cannot  be  properly  handled  by  those  who  are 
compelled  to  make  it  subordinate  to  other  duties. 
New  York  City  has  found  it  necessary  to  establish 
a  separate  Tenement-house  Department.  There 
are  many  good  reasons  why  Boston,  though  a  much 
smaller  city,  should  do  the  same. 

Complaints  against  the  present  building  laws  of 
Boston  have  arisen  from  several  quarters.  Those 
who  have  been  inclined  to  invest  money  in  improved 
tenement  houses  are  now  deterred  on  the  ground 
that  first-class  buildings,  erected  under  present 
requirements  and  rented  to  families  who  cannot 
pay  as  much  as  sixteen  dollars  a  month,  would 
yield  practically  no  return  on  the  investment. 
Others  complain  that  under  the  head  of  repairs 
the  present  laws  allow  old  buildings  to  be  recon- 
structed without  conforming  to  restrictions  applied 
to  new  buildings.  This  leads  to  the  perpetuation 
in  an  increased  degree  of   the  evils   of   the  old 


CITY  AND  SLUM  101 

houses.  Finally  the  Health  Department,  in  its 
report  for  1901,  complains  that  the  present  build- 
ing laws  over-emphasize  the  matter  of  fireproof  con- 
struction and  pay  too  little  attention  to  light  and 
ventilation,  thereby  permitting  air  shafts  that  are 
utterly  inadequate  and  halls  and  stairways  which 
are  almost  totally  dark. 

Such  complaints  make  it  clear  that  there  is  need 
of  a  careful  revision  of  these  laws  from  the  various 
points  of  view  of  fireproof  construction,  economical 
arrangement,  adequate  ventilation  and  light,  ar- 
tistic architecture,  and  inexpensive  accommodation. 
Such  a  revision  should  be  made  by  a  commission 
made  up  of  architects,  builders,  physicians,  and  san- 
itary and  philanthropic  experts.  A  petition  has 
been  presented  to  the  mayor  of  Boston  by  the  Tene- 
ment-house Committee  of  the  Twentieth  Century 
Club  asking  for  the  appointment  of  just  such  a 
commission.  Public-spirited  citizens,  whose  opin- 
ions would  carry  great  weight,  have  indicated  their 
willingness  to  serve  on  a  commission  of  this  kind 
without  other  compensation  than  the  opportunity 
to  aid  in  improving  housing  conditions.  Changes 
in  legislation  proposed  by  such  a  body  would  cer- 
tainly receive  the  most  careful  consideration  on  the 
part  of  the  fnembers  of  the  Massachusetts  legis- 
lature. 


102  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Meanwhile  there  are  various  lines  of  improve- 
ment which  can  and  undoubtedly  will  be  under- 
taken. The  investigation  of  the  tenement  houses 
made  by  the  Health  Department  in  1901  furnishes 
the  data  for  much  effective  sanitary  progress.  The 
demolition  of  single  unfit  buildings  continues, 
although  the  lack  of  funds  retards  activity  in  this 
direction.  Having  no  money  in  hand  for  the  pay- 
ment of  possible  damages,  it  is  inevitable  that  the 
authorities  should  avoid  condemning  any  building 
for  which  a  claim  for  damages  could  be  successfully 
established.  This  results,  as  has  already  been  said, 
in  the  demolition  of  only  the  very  worst  build- 
ings. That  more  than  this  needs  to  be  done  is 
recognized  by  the  Health  Department,  and  the 
sum  of  $10,000  has  been  requested  from  the  City 
Council  as  a  sinking  fund  to  provide  against 
damage  suits.  It  is  essential  that  some  such 
appropriation  be  made  in  the  near  future. 

The  department  has  also  recommended  the 
widening  and  extending  of  certain  narrow  streets 
and  alleys.  "  There  are  a  number  of  congested 
districts  in  this  city  where  improvements  of  this 
kind  could  be  made  to  great  advantage ;  such,  for 
instance,  as  Webster  Avenue  from  Hanover  Street 
to  Unity  Street,  which  could  be  widened  and  made 
a  street,  thus  doing  away  with  a  lot  of  unsanitary 


CITY  AND  SLUM  103 

dwellings  and  improving  all  the  others.  Another 
great  improvement  could  be  made  by  the  extension 
of  Hale  Street,  formerly  Crescent  Place,  to  South 
Margin  Street."  ^ 

Nor  has  the  need  of  more  open  spaces  been  over- 
looked. In  the  report  for  1900,^  the  department 
recommended  that  "  as  Cross  Street  is  to  be  widened 
in  the  near  future,  the  territory  bounded  by  Salem, 
Stillman,  Endicott,  and  Cross  streets  be  taken 
possession  of  by  the  city  and  made  a  breathing 
spot,  thus  doing  away  with  a  number  of  old,  unsan- 
itary, and  dilapidated  tenement  houses,  and  also 
abolishing  Morton  Street,  which  is  one  of  the  nar- 
rowest, dirtiest,  and  most  unsanitary  streets  m  the 
city  of  Boston." 

Such  recommendations  cannot  long  go  unheeded. 
The  housing  problem  has  come  to  be  recognized  in 
England  as  the  most  vital  of  all  municipal  problems, 
and  heroic  efforts  are  being  made  to  solve  it.  It 
is  receiving  in  Boston  the  attention  of  an  increas- 
ing number  of  those  who  are  most  intelligent  con- 
cerning the  needs  of  the  city.  The  situation  must 
be  handled  in  a  comprehensive  manner,  with  ade- 
quate recognition  of  the  future,  and  in  a  full 
sense  of  its  bearing  upon  the  city's  welfare  and 
progTess. 

1  Annual  Beport  of  the  Health  Department  for  1901,  p.  42. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  42. 


CHAPTER  V 

LIVELIHOOD 

In  ways  of  earning  their  bread,  as  in  other 
things,  North  and  West  End  people  stand  out  quite 
distinct  from  the  remainder  of  the  city's  popula- 
tion. Something  of  their  industrial  civilization 
they  brought  with  them.  The  city,  from  the  nature 
of  its  growth,  had  made  these  districts  the  likely 
lodgment  of  struggling  immigrants  as  they  arrived. 
To  a  considerable  extent  it  had  also  ordained  the 
currents  in  which  the  local  industry  should  run. 
This  is  particularly  true  with  respect  to  the  North 
End.  The  sharp  limit  of  the  water-front,  with  its 
docks,  warehouses,  and  great  traffic;  the  North 
Union  Station  and  its  approaches ;  the  markets 
reaching  out  toward  the  railroad  terminal  in  one 
direction,  and  toward  the  harbor  in  another  — 
effectually  stamp  their  impress  upon  the  district. 
The  boundaries  of  the  West  End  do  not  take  a  form 
so  definitely  commercial,  but  the  section  is  much 
more  affected  by  railroad  activity  than  the  North 
End,  while  it  has  easier  access  to  the  great  centres 


LIVELIHOOD  105 

of  trade  in  the  heart  of  the  city.  Beacon  Hill 
prevents  the  growth  of  trade  to  the  south  of  the 
district,  while  the  bank  of  the  river  is  not  avail- 
able for  commercial  use  on  account  of  the  draw- 
bridge tolls,  added  to  the  high  cost  of  land.  Be- 
tween the  hill  and  the  river  is  a  narrow  strip  of 
territory  which  the  West  End  population  is  gradu- 
ally invading.  Here  there  are  numerous  stables, 
and  the  workshops  of  many  jobbing  mechanics  and 
artisans.  The  northern  slope  of  the  hill,  rejected 
by  the  prosperous  as  being  exposed  to  all  that  is 
worst  in  the  Boston  winter,  furnishes  convenient 
location  for  two  strongly  contrasted  grades  of  at- 
tache to  downtown  establishments,  clerks  and  Ne- 
groes. 

There  is  not  much  large-scale  manufacture  in  or 
near  the  North  and  West  Ends.  The  only  con- 
siderable plants  are,  one  for  the  generation  of 
illuminating  gas,  — which  is  soon  to  be  removed,  — 
the  other  for  the  generation  of  electric  power  for 
the  transit  system.  These  are  both  on  the  North 
End  water-front.  The  North  End  has  some  tin 
factories  and  furniture  factories,  and  in  both  dis- 
tricts there  are  large  establishments  for  the  manu- 
facture of  confectionery  and  cigars.  In  general, 
land  is  too  expensive  in  these  parts  for  any  in- 
dustrial enterprise  requiring  space. 


106  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

The  great  stores  of  the  city,  all  of  which  can 
easily  be  reached  from  any  point  in  these  districts 
by  walking,  are  related  to  them  not  merely  as 
centres  of  employment  and  bases  for  household 
supply,  but  as  markets  for  clothing  made  at  home 
or  in  small  workshops,  and  as  headquarters  for  lay- 
ing in  the  materials  for  peddling. 

The  direction  taken  by  shopkeeping  within  these 
districts,  even  more  than  other  aspects  of  their 
economic  life,  is  largely  a  matter  of  nationality. 
The  Italian  and  Jewish  colonies  are  to  a  consider- 
able extent  self-sufficient,  with  the  full  variety  of 
trade  in  the  hands  of  men  of  their  own  race.  But 
in  the  Italian  quarter  the  clothing  trade  is  con- 
trolled by  Jews,  and  the  Jewish  quarter  is  being 
invaded  by  Italian  greengrocers.  Here  and  there, 
ever  more  rarely,  is  a  weather-beaten  signboard  with 
the  name  of  some  belated  New  Engiander,  strug- 
gling to  maintain  his  foothold  against  intruders  on 
his  market  by  offering  to  speak  several  sorts  of 
foreign  tongue. 

There  are  a  few  Jewish  and  Italian  liquor  sellers, 
but  the  Irish  still  hold  their  regrettable  monopoly 
of  that  noxious  trade.  The  saloons  are  the  last 
commercial  relic  of  Irish  occupation.  They  are  ex- 
ceptionally numerous  because  to  these  two  districts 
are  apportioned  the  full  number  of  saloons   sup- 


LIVELIHOOD  107 

posed  to  be  appropriate  to  the  great  crowds  that 
are  found  near  or  within  their  boundaries  during 
business  hours.  The  business  has  been  a  very 
lucrative  one  in  times  past,  and  many  well-to-do 
Irish  families  throughout  the  city  owe  their  rise  in 
life  to  it ;  but  this  condition  of  things  has  changed. 
Not  a  few  saloon-keepers,  in  fact,  find  it  difficult 
to  make  their  living  out  of  the  trade.  In  all 
parts  of  the  city,  even  where  the  Irish  strongly 
predominate,  the  cause  of  temperance  is  making 
headway,  because  it  is  the  general  testimony  that 
the  saloon  business  is  noticeably  falling  off.  There 
is  additional  reason  for  such  falling  off  where  Jews 
and  Itahans  are  displacing  a  population  of  Irish  ori- 
gin, both  being  more  temperate  races,  taking  milder 
liquors,  and  using  them  at  home.  The  Jew  seldom 
enters  a  saloon.  Italians  in  considerable  numbers 
patronize  the  saloons  kept  by  their  own  country- 
men at  the  North  End.  Here  they  learn  to  drink 
beer  instead  of  the  Italian  wines  to  which  they 
have  been  accustomed. 

There  is  a  special  and  permanent  fitness  in 
the  Italians'  choice  of  abode  just  next  to  the  great 
fruit  and  vegetable  markets.  The  citizens  of  Bos- 
ton owe  a  great  debt  to  the  Italians  for  organizing 
and  developing  the  retail  fruit  trade  throughout 
the   city.     The  Italians  have,  in  fact,  created  a 


108  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

wholesome  appetite  for  fruit  among  the  mass  of 
the  people.  Believing  in  their  goods,  they  have 
special  skill  in  selecting,  arranging  and  caring  for 
it.  Even  the  newest  immigrant,  with  his  push- 
cart, makes  his  wares  attractive,  and  unwittingly 
acts  as  the  dietetic  missionary  of  the  back  streets 
throughout  the  city.  In  their  stores  at  the  North 
End  the  Italians  have  striking  displays  of  vege- 
tables in  their  season,  red  and  green  peppers  having 
all  seasons  for  their  own. 

As  has  been  suggested,  the  Jews  seem  to  prize 
the  Italians'  taste  and  cleanliness  as  a  purveyor  of 
food.  The  contrast  between  the  Italian  and  Jewish 
grocery  would  seem  to  be  appreciable  in  every  case 
to  more  senses  than  one.  As  to  meat,  however, 
the  faithful  Israelite  still  prefers  the  ceremonially 
even  to  the  asepticaUy  clean.  The  tendency  of  the 
Jew  toward  wearing  apparel  as  his  stock  in  trade 
is  strongly  shown  by  his  ready  recourse  to  the  ped- 
dler's pack,  and  even  by  his  falling  back  as  a  last 
resort  upon  "  rags."  The  Jew's  surprising  power 
of  making  headway  is  seen  in  his  very  first  essays. 
The  Jewish  immigrant  has  moral  capital  to  begin 
with.  He  is  seldom  or  never  illiterate.  He  always 
has  a  friend  who  can  loan  him  a  shelter  if  not 
money.  And  he  is  not  by  any  means  always  im- 
poverished when  he  reaches   our   shores.      Borne 


LIVELIHOOD  109 

forward  by  Ms  indomitable  pertinacity,  armed  with 
a  few  words  of  English,  he  shoulders  his  junk  bag 
or  his  peddler's  pack.  Jewish  peddlers  in  some 
cases  start  out  on  long  circuits  through  New  Eng- 
land, and  are  gone  for  months.  They  are  not 
much  seen  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  city. 
That  route  of  caravan  trade  has  been  recently  taken 
up  by  some  Semitic  cousins  of  theirs,  the  women  of 
the  new  Syrian  colony  at  the  South  End. 

The  Jew's  capacity  for  trade  in  cast-off  utilities 
appears  frequently,  of  course,  in  the  pawnshops, 
"  misfit  parlors  "  and  junk  shops.  These  lines  of 
trade  are,  however,  not  so  successful  as  formerly. 
The  charges  of  pawnbrokers  are  restricted  by  law 
to  one  and  a  half  per  cent,  per  month,  and  they  are 
likely  to  suffer  severely  if  they  accept  stolen  goods. 
New  ready-made  clothing  has  become  so  cheap  at  the 
downtown  stores  that  the  demand  for  second-hand 
garments,  except  those  of  "  Harvard  students," 
has  quite  fallen  away.  Trade  in  junk  has  also 
suffered  by  the  lessened  cost  of  manufacture  in 
various  lines.  It  would  appear,  however,  that 
every  effort  is  made  to  exhaust  the  remaining  pos- 
sibilities of  the  rag  and  bottle  business,  judging 
from  the  number  and  persistency  of  raucous-voiced 
Hebrews  who  file  through  the  back  alleys  of  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  city. 


110  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Tlie  junk  collector  or  peddler  in  a  surprisingly 
short  time  is  found  as  the  proprietor  of  a  small 
basement  store,  or  the  owner  of  a  wagon  in  which 
he  hawks  vegetables  or  ice  in  summer,  wood  and 
coal  in  winter.  The  owner  of  a  clothing  or  dry- 
goods  store  is  in  a  more  secure  position,  not  deal- 
ing in  goods  that  are  so  perishable  or  so  limited 
to  their  season  ;  but  these  small  merchants  are 
constantly  feeling  the  competition  of  the  great 
department  stores  among  their  more  thrifty  cus- 
tomers, and  of  the  installment  stores  among  the  less 
thrifty.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  new  type  of  peddler, 
a  man  who,  by  a  special  understanding  with  a 
department  store,  sells  its  goods  to  customers  on 
the  installment  plan.  This  is  an  alliance  on  the 
part  of  the  small  Jewish  trader  and  the  depart- 
ment store  in  order  to  meet  the  installment  store 
with  its  own  weapons. 

The  more  prosperous  shopkeepers  are  German 
Jews  on  Hanover  Street.  Their  trade  is  on  a  con- 
siderable scale,  and  they  own  their  places  of  busi- 
ness. On  Salem  Street  the  property  is  still  held 
by  old  Boston  families.  Clothing  stores  are  the 
most  conspicuous,  and  the  dealers  do  not  wait  pas- 
sively within  for  their  customers.  Food  supplies 
and  household  furnishings  of  the  cheapest  grades 
are  all  dealt  in.     An  exception  must  be  made  in 


LIVELIHOOD  111 

the  case  of  the  butcher  shops.  These  have  the 
trade  of  Jews  from  all  sections  of  the  city. 
They  sell  the  better  qualities  of  meat,  and  are 
especially  careful  about  their  supply  of  fish.  There 
are  three  bankers  on  Salem  Street,  whose  business 
seems  to  be  chiefly  concerned  with  foreign  ex- 
change. In  the  West  End,  Jewish  trade  is  increas- 
ing rapidly,  but  this  growth,  up  to  the  present, 
takes  the  shape  of  innumerable  small  enterprises. 
Many  of  them  must  go  to  the  wall  before  there 
can  be  any  possibility  of  well-conducted  and  pros- 
perous establishments  in  the  streets  of  which  the 
Jews  have  taken  possession. 

The  sale  of  jewelry  is  a  staple  form  of  business 
among  the  more  prosperous  Jews  of  these  parts  of 
the  city.  For  this,  as  for  other  sorts  of  trade, 
they  prefer  to  be  a  little  removed  from  the  Jewish 
quarter,  where  they  can  have  the  trade  of  their 
congeners  and  of  the  world  as  well.  There  is 
some  personal  and  incidental  trade  in  gold  and 
gems,  as  was  characteristic  of  the  Jews  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  A  case  in  point  was  that  of  a  kosher 
butcher  who  was  also  in  a  quiet  way  a  dealer  in 
diamonds.  This  survival  is  the  more  interesting 
because  the  Jew  has  come  to  realize  intensely  that 
he  is  at  last  in  a  country  where  he  will  not  be  com- 
pelled to  flee  at  night ;  that  his  treasure  need  no 


112  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

longer  be  such  as  can  be  tied  in  a  napkin.  The 
old  land  hunger  has  returned  upon  him  in  a  pas- 
sion for  "real  estate."  With  a  keen  sense  for 
earning  his  living  by  profit  rather  than  by  wages, 
and  with  the  necessary  capacity  for  strict  attention 
to  detail,  this  easiest  and  surest  form  of  profit- 
making  is  to  him  an  economic  vision  of  hope  and 
happiness.  The  increase  of  Jewish  ownership  in 
real  estate  during  the  past  ten  years  has  been 
amazing.  The  number  of  Jewish  landlords  is  so 
large  that  the  pioneers  among  them  complain  bit- 
terly that  there  are  "  too  many  in  the  business." 
A  considerable  number  of  Jews  now  give  their 
occupation  as  "  real  estate  ;  "but  even  petty  traders 
are  property  owners  by  the  way.  One  man  who 
has  been  a  peddler  for  fifteen  years  owns  two 
houses.  A  certain  small  shopkeeper  in  the  North 
End  is  the  owner  of  three  houses,  which  accommo- 
date ten  families  besides  his  own. 

Jewish  real-estate  holdings  are  more  numerous  in 
proportion  in  the  parts  of  the  city  under  review  in 
this  volume  than  elsewhere  in  the  city,  but  in  the 
South  End  and  Roxbury  such  holdings  are  rapidly 
growing.  In  the  North  and  West  Ends  in  1900, 
estates  with  a  total  assessed  valuation  of  16, 344,700 
were  charged  to  persons  of  names  unmistakably 


LIVELIHOOD  113 

Jewish.!  Practically  every  parcel  of  this  property 
represents  but  a  very  slender  cash  investment,  but 
it  is  managed  so  painstakingly  and  shrewdly  that 
mortgages  are  rapidly  reduced.  The  method  of  the 
new  landlord  is  in  nearly  every  case  the  same.  He 
purchases  an  old  building,  tears  out  the  plaster 
partitions,  rearranging  them  so  as  to  give  a  larger 
number  of  rooms,  builds  an  ell  so  as  to  cover  as 
much  of  the  ground  as  possible,  tears  down  the  old 
front  wall  and  erects  a  new  one  of  showy  yellow 
brick,  which  seems  to  be  particularly  attractive  to 
tenants'  eyes,  and  almost  universally  makes  the 
front  cellar  do  duty  as  a  basement  store.  The  old 
material  is  used  as  far  as  possible.  New  material 
is  of  the  cheapest  grade.  The  labor  is  provided 
by  ill-paid  recent  immigrants.  Such  a  develop- 
ment implies  a  large  amount  of  money-lending  on 
the  part  of  brethren  who  have  been  particularly 
successful. 

The  two  most  characteristic  forms  of  small  capi- 
talist that  have  developed  among  the  Continental 
immigrants  are  the  Jewish  sweater  and  the  Italian 
padrone.  Originally  the  sweating  system  was  a 
method  on  the  part  of  small  manufacturers  to  escape 
the  cost  of  rent,  heat  and  light  by  having  the  em- 

^  The  property  of  well-known  downtown  merchants  is  not  in- 
cluded in  this  total. 


114  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

ployee  do  the  work  in  his  own  home.  The  sweater 
also  sets  out  to  secure  the  advantage  of  the  prin- 
ciple that  a  man's  home  is  his  castle,  in  order  to 
avoid  legislative  regulation  and  official  inspection. 
He  seeks  as  his  employees  the  most  ignorant  and 
helpless  of  the  immigrants  ;  enlists  all  the  mem- 
bers of  a  family,  including  little  children  ;  pays 
them  by  the  piece  at  cruelly  low  rates,  so  that  very 
long  hours  of  work  are  necessary,  amid  congestion 
that  conduces  surely  to  ill  health  and  low  morality. 
The  scale  of  wages  for  other  work-people  is  se- 
riously endangered.  These  evils,  in  their  worst 
aspects,  may  fortunately  be  spoken  of  as  things  of 
the  past  in  Boston.  Ten  years  ago,  as  the  result 
of  public  agitation,  a  law  was  passed  by  which 
work  at  home  is  under  very  careful  inspection  as 
to  the  sanitary  surroundings  in  which  the  work  is 
done.  Licenses  are  given  only  in  case  of  strict 
cleanliness  in  the  tenement  of  the  applicant,  in  the 
hallways  leading  to  it,  and  in  the  yard  at  the  back. 
A  fine  of  fifty  dollars  is  provided  for  the  offense 
of  giving  out  work  to  an  unlicensed  person.  At 
present,  licenses  for  home  work  in  the  North  and 
West  Ends  are  comparatively  limited  in  number. 
They  are  held  principally  by  Italian  and  Portu- 
guese women,  who  eke  out  a  little  in  time  spared 
from  their  domestic  duties. 


LIVELIHOOD  115 

The  sweating  system  has  thus,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  disappeared  from  districts  where  it  once 
flourished,  and  where  all  the  local  conditions  for 
its  growth  still  exist.  The  effect  of  the  anti- 
sweating  legislation  was  at  first  in  some  ways  dis- 
astrous. The  orders  which  had  formerly  been 
fulfilled  in  Boston  sweat  shops  were  immediately 
transferred  to  sweaters  in  New  York.  The  local 
garment  industry  in  its  cheaper  grades  was  for  a 
time  prostrated.  Many  garment-workers  went  to 
New  York,  some  to  Canada. 

In  due  time,  however,  a  considerable  share  of 
the  old  industry  was  reorganized  in  separate  work- 
shops, which  are  subject  to  factory  inspection. 
There  are  certain  attractive  sides  to  this  work. 
The  Jew  dislikes  the  military  regulations  which 
necessarily  govern  a  factory.  He  enjoys  the 
friendly  intimacy  of  the  shop.  The  master  pro- 
vides, as  far  as  possible,  for  his  Sabbath  rest  and 
worship.  The  smaller  shops  are  attached  to  a 
little  tailor  store  — it  is  usually  a  "ladies'  tailor  " 
—  and  are  scattered  through  various  parts  of  thc^ 
city.  When  they  work  for  private  customers  they 
are  not  subject  to  inspection.  The  larger  shops 
are  found  in  the  North  and  West  Ends,  for  the 
most  part  in  warehouse  buildings.  The  force  in 
each  shop   includes  from   five  to  thirty  men  and 


116  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

women.  The  men  are  chiefly  Jews ;  the  women, 
Italians  and  Portuguese.  Some  of  the  evils  of  the 
sweating  system  still  persist,  —  low  wages,  long, 
imcertain  hours,  evasion  of  sanitary  regulations, 
very  irregular  employment  according  to  dull  or 
busy  season,  the  competition  of  recent  unskilled 
immigrants.  It  is  from  these  shops  that  the 
unfinished  clothing  is  given  out  to  the  licensed 
home-workers. 

The  rise  of  the  Jewish  master  tailor  presents  an 
instructive  instance  of  the  evolution  of  the  capital- 
ist. He  works  endlessly,  living  with  his  family 
on  an  impossibly  small  expenditure.  He  lays  by  a 
small  amount.  He  gets  his  landlord  or  his  butcher 
as  his  security.  He  purchases  a  sewing  machine 
and  a  pressing  table  on  the  installment  plan.  At 
first  he  makes  less  than  his  employees ;  but  by  per- 
severance, by  quick  perception  as  to  organizing  and 
subdividing  the  industry  into  specialties,  often  by 
keeping  up  a  human  feeling  between  himself  and 
his  employees,  he  gradually  develops  his  business 
until  he  can  command  the  services  of  certain 
specially  skilled  workmen  to  act  as  leaders  in  his 
shop,  and  can  present  inducements  to  foremen  in 
the  large  clothing  stores  for  the  sake  of  winning 
their  patronage. 

Within  the  past  three  or  four  years,  a  considera- 


LIVELIHOOD  IIT 

He  business  in  the  raw  material  of  the  garment 
industry  has  sprung  up  at  the  North  End.  There 
are- now  eight  small  firms  dealing  in  woolen  goods. 
It  is  possible  for  them  to  compete  with  downtown 
wholesalers  by  keen  attention  to  small  considera- 
tions in  buying,  by  paying  low  rents,  and  by  han- 
dling poor  grades  of  goods.  Their  business  is  not 
confined  to  the  local  garment  trade ;  they  supply 
small  Jewish  tailors  in  different  parts  of  New 
England. 

The  Jew  is  narrow  in  the  range  of  his  occupa- 
tions. The  growth  of  a  class  of  mechanics  and 
artisans  has  awaited  the  development  of  a  class 
of  smaU  capitalists.  Jewish  real-estate  ownership 
is  already  bringing  an  increase  of  Jewish  workmen 
in  the  building  trades.  The  Jews  have  the  in- 
genuity and  mechanical  ability  which  would  fit 
them  for  industrial  crafts,  and  many  of  them  have 
followed  such  vocations  in  Russia. 

The  Italian  represents  a  varied  list  of  occu- 
pations. In  the  North  End  colony  there  are 
artisans,  bakers,  barbers,  confectioners,  musicians, 
tailors,  scissors  grinders,  shoemakers,  marble  cut- 
ters, and  workers  in  plaster.  The  Italians  have 
discovered  how  much  the  average  young  clerk  or 
mechanic,  on  occasion,  enjoys  having  some  one  else 
polish  his  shoes.     At  a  number  of  points  through- 


118  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

out  the  city  they  have  opened  good-sized  rooms 
wholly  given  over  to  bootblacking,  and  these  rooms 
seem  to  furnish  rather  profitable  occupation.  Many 
Italian  boys  are  bootblacks  at  large  in  the  old-time 
way,  making  Boston  Common  their  headquarters. 

An  increasing  number  of  Italian  women,  with  a 
few  men,  engage  in  agricultural  work  in  the  mar- 
ket gardens  of  Arlington,  Belmont,  Lexington  and 
other  adjoining  towns.  The  women  bring  some 
intelligence  and  endless  assiduity  to  such  work, 
and  the  market  gardeners  are  much  pleased  with 
this  new  source  of  labor  supply.  A  cluster  of 
bright  headdresses  among  the  growing  crops  in  a 
New  England  field  is  a  distinctly  novel  sight.  It 
is  a  thing,  however,  which  brings  a  sigh  for  all  in 
American  tradition  which  goes  against  overbur- 
dened womanhood.  Often,  in  addition  to  their 
field  labor,  these  women  walk  the  entire  distance 
from  the  North  End  and  back  each  day. 

Fully  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  men  of  the  Boston 
Italian  colony  are  engaged  more  or  less  regularly 
at  heavy  labor  with  pick  and  shovel,  in  railroad 
building  or  in  the  construction  of  gas  and  water 
works.  Such  toil  always  nowadays  calls  to  mind 
the  Italian.  This  is  quite  as  true  in  various  parts 
of  Europe  as  in  this  country.  The  one-time  con- 
queror of  the  world  is  now  its  slave. 


LIVELIHOOD  119 

When  the  Italian  laborer  appeared  among  us,  he 
was  indeed  in  bondage,  under  a  cruel  taskmaster. 
The  ItaHan  padrone,  in  the  days  of  his  ascend- 
ency, took  a  disastrously  large  commission  for  the 
purchase  of  the  immigrant's  steamer  ticket,  upon 
his  wages  after  he  arrived,  upon  the  rent  of  his 
miserable  overcrowded  abode ;  and  finally,  in  many 
cases,  with  the  assistance  of  an  Italian  banker,  ap- 
propriated his  savings  wholesale.  The  padrone's 
methods  have  been  much  limited  as  the  years 
have  passed.  The  Italian  government,  which  for- 
merly looked  upon  all  emigrants  in  the  light  of 
deserters,  now  takes  a  more  liberal  attitude,  and 
has  regulations  in  force  to  protect  its  citizens  as 
they  leave  the  country.  The  stranger  arriving 
upon  our  shores  now  has  friends,  acquainted  to 
some  extent  with  the  English  language  and  with 
the  ways  of  the  country,  who  inform  him  as  to 
wages  and  conditions  of  labor,  and  perhaps  receive 
him  as  a  lodger  in  their  own  little  tenement.  The 
absconding  banker  is  becoming  rare,  especially  as 
the  Itahans  are  learning  to  put  their  savings  in 
the  old,  well-established  savings  banks  of  the  city. 
One  of  the  Italian  banks  at  the  North  End  does 
business  under  a  name  recognizably  Irish,  —  this  in 
the  hope  of  convincing  Little  Italy  that  it  is  an 
American   institution.      The    American    Express 


120  AMERICANS  IN  PEOCESS 

Company  lias  recently  established  a  branch  near 
North  Square,  offering  in  Italian  terms  to  send 
money  safely  to  Europe.  The  Italian  banks  still 
appear  to  drive  a  thriving  trade,  if  the  lavish  dis- 
play of  gold  and  greenbacks  in  their  windows  may 
be  taken  as  proof.  Their  close  relations  with  the 
padrones  is  shown  by  their  acting  as  headquarters 
for  information  about  employment  for  groups  of 
unskilled  laborers  at  various  points  throughout  the 
surrounding  country. 

A  few  Italians  have  taken  up  the  business  of 
hotel-keeping,  but  the  standards  of  these  men  have 
been  so  lax  as  to  make  them  very  objectionable  in 
that  capacity,  —  so  much  so  that  their  progress  in 
that  direction  has  to  some  extent  been  blocked  by 
the  police.  It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that 
all  Italian  business  enterprise  is  of  the  nature  of 
preying  upon  the  community.  There  are  several 
successful  Italian  firms  in  the  wholesale  fruit 
trade.  The  manufacture  of  macaroni  is  a  natural 
and  growing  avenue  for  Italian  business  talent. 
The  making  and  selling  of  plaster  casts  of  statu- 
ary, for  which  so  large  a  demand  has  within  a  few 
years  been  created,  is  thus  far  an  Italian  monopoly. 
The  number  of  Italian  real-estate  owners  is  very 
considerable.  In  the  North  End,  in  1900,  $2,325,- 
800  worth   of  property  was    ascribed  in  the  city 


LIVELIHOOD  121 

records  to  persons  having  Italian  names.  A  few 
artists,  musicians  and  handicraftsmen  of  distinct 
ability  have  begun  to  appear  among  them,  and 
there  is  prospect  of  many  more  in  the  rising  gener- 
ation ;  but  such  persons  are  likely  to  move  to  other 
parts  of  the  city. 

A  very  large  majority  of  the  Irish  in  the  North 
and  West  Ends  are  unskilled  laborers.  On  the 
whole,  they  do  not  suffer  as  much  as  would  be 
supposed  under  the  competition  of  recent  immi- 
grants. To  a  considerable  degree  the  Irish  and 
the  Jews  represent  non-competing  groups,  their 
industrial  capacities  being  so  divergent.  Then  the 
large  amount  of  work  carried  on  by  the  municipal- 
ity, for  which  the  Italians  might  be  candidates,  is 
restricted  to  American  citizens.  This,  as  well  as 
labor  under  the  great  corporations,  whose  fran- 
chises come  from  the  city  government,  is  dispensed 
ahnost  entirely  as  political  patronage.  As  the 
politics  of  these  two  districts  is  still  in  the  control 
of  the  Irish,  men  of  that  nationality  practically 
monopolize  these  forms  of  labor  so  far  as  the  North 
and  West  End  population  is  concerned.  It  is  prob- 
able that  not  less  than  one  third  of  the  families 
of  Irish  extraction  in  these  districts  have  bread- 
winners that  are  employed  through  political  influ- 
ence. 


122  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

There  is  among  them  a  large  number  of  dock 
laborers,  freight  handlers,  and  teamsters.  The 
skilled  trades  have  some  representation.  Members 
of  the  younger  generation  are  very  likely  to  seek 
mercantile  employment.  The  Irish  huckster  is 
giving  way  to  the  Italian  with  his  push-cart.  The 
prosperous  Irish  citizens  of  these  parts,  omitting 
saloon-keepers  and  politicians,  are  a  few  substantial 
shopkeepers  who  still  remain,  and  a  few  contract- 
ors, who  for  the  most  part  might  be  classed  as 
politicians. 

The  Portuguese  are  sufficiently  numerous  to 
have  some  small  supply  stores  of  their  own.  Like 
the  Scandinavians  in  the  North  End,  they  are 
primarily  sailors  and  fishermen  or  longshoremen. 
They  are  found  to  some  extent  in  skilled  mechani- 
cal work,  as  pattern-makers  or  cabinet-makers. 
Some  of  the  young  men  become  barbers.  The 
young  women  go  out  as  domestic  servants,  though 
a  few  are  shopgirls. 

The  Greeks  are  in  active  and,  so  far  as  their 
numbers  go,  successful  competition  with  the  Ital- 
ians as  sellers  of  fruit  and  sweets.  Indeed,  they 
are  leaving  their  ancient  rivals  far  behind.  They 
are  becoming  noticeable  for  their  achievements  in 
developing  the  confectionery  trade  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  great  downtown  stores  which  attract 


LIVELIHOOD  123 

women  purchasers.  The  Greeks  know  that  the 
mother  on  returning  home  must  always  come  bear- 
ing gifts. 

There  are  several  small  but  enterprising  Negro 
shopkeepers  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  in  the  West 
End.  A  branch  of  Booker  Washington's  Business 
Men's  League  exists  in  that  quarter.  The  vast 
majority  of  them,  however,  follow  the  menial  occu- 
pations to  which  they  are  fated,  —  waiters,  ser- 
vants, sleeping-car  porters,  bootblacks.  Some 
occupy  the  more  independent  positions  of  janitor 
or  elevator  man.  Occasionally  a  colored  man  em- 
ployed in  a  store  combines  the  functions  of  porter 
and  clerk.  There  are  but  few  colored  members  of 
skilled  trades,  and  even  the  barber's  trade  seems 
to  be  closing  to  them.  A  considerable  number  of 
burly  Southern  Negroes  work  in  the  markets,  car- 
rying quarters  and  halves  of  meat  on  their  backs. 
There  are  also  a  few  colored  teamsters.  Persons  of 
leisure  are  by  no  means  lacking,  supported  by  their 
wives,  who  go  forth  as  laundresses  or  scrubwomen. 

Men  of  American  and  British  American  ante- 
cedents, found  in  the  West  End  lodging-houses, 
are  chiefly  clerks  in  stores  and  counting-houses, 
though  there  are  among  them  not  a  few  mechanics 
and  artisans,  who,  having  only  themselves  to  pro- 
vide  for,  manage    to    live    in    a   somewhat   more 


124  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

ambitious  way  than  most  of  their  fellow  workmen. 
Here  and  there  through  the  lodging-house  streets 
are  a  few  members  of  the  learned  professions,  for 
the  most  part  in  rather  doubtful  standing.  Each 
nationality  among  the  tenement  houses  of  both  dis- 
tricts, including  the  Negroes,  is  gradually  developing 
its  quota  of  professional  men.  There  is  a  notice- 
able tendency  on  the  part  of  the  brighter  young 
men,  especially  among  the  Jews,  to  become  lawyers 
and  enter  the  lists  for  a  general  city  clientele.  Too 
often  they  seem  to  have  an  instinct  for  methods 
which  do  not  lend  credit  to  their  calling. 

The  lot  of  most  immigrant  women,  so  far  as 
actual  labor  goes,  is  not  so  severe  as  it  was  be- 
fore they  left  their  old  homes.  Factory  develop- 
ment takes  from  them  spinning,  weaving,  knitting, 
and  to  some  extent  even  sewing.  There  are  dis- 
tinct signs  of  leisure  among  the  Italian  housewives 
at  the  North  End.  It  is  this  state  of  things  which 
makes  it  possible  for  some  of  them  to  undertake 
agricultural  labor,  and  for  others  to  scour  the  city 
for  wood,  which  they  carry  on  their  heads  by  the 
cart  load,  skillfully  navigating  through  the  most 
crowded  streets.  Italian  girls  and  young  women 
quite  commonly  work  in  the  confectionery  factories. 
Some  of  them,  and  some  Jewish  girls  as  well, 
are  now  found  behind  the  counters  of  the  depart- 


LIVELIHOOD  125 

ment  stores.  But  Jewish  women  seldom  leave 
their  homes  to  work.  Marriage  comes  early,  and 
unmarried  women  are  as  scarce  as  beggars  in  the 
Jewish  community.  Where  there  is  a  store,  the 
family  Hves  adjoining  it,  and  the  wife  and  daugh- 
ters assist  actively  in  conducting  the  business.  A 
considerable  number  of  Jewish  and  Italian  women 
work  with  the  men  in  the  garment  shops.  Irish 
women  have  almost  disappeared  from  the  sewing 
trade  in  this  part  of  the  city,  as  a  result  of  the 
disastrous  competition  of  the  newcomers.  For 
many  of  them  the  change  was  a  tragedy.  Others 
have  found  more  secure  employment  in  the  down- 
town factories  and  department  stores.  In  the 
lodging-house  district  in  the  West  End,  there 
are  of  course  many  young  women  from  the  country 
and  some  from  the  British  provinces,  who  have 
positions  as  saleswomen,  stenographers  and  writ- 
ing clerks  in  large  mercantile  establishments. 

The  pressure  upon  children  to  become  wage 
earners  as  soon  as  the  compulsory  period  of  school 
attendance  is  passed,  so  as  to  supplement  the  fam- 
ily income,  is,  except  in  the  case  of  Jewish  girls, 
weU-nigh  universal  and  very  insistent.  Office 
boys,  cash  boys  and  messenger  boys  in  the  city  are 
largely  Irish.  Jewish  boys  monopolize  the  down- 
town  newspaper   trade.     Italian   boys   are   boot- 


126  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

blacks.  Colored  boys  are  fortunate  in  beginning 
with  the  occupations  which  they  will  follow  as 
men.  Boys  of  other  nationalities  follow  juvenile 
occupations,  which  in  a  few  years  leave  them  on  the 
employment  market  almost  as  helpless,  as  far  as 
experience  and  training  is  concerned,  as  they  were 
when  they  left  school.  The  evil  effect  of  the 
streets  is  very  apparent  upon  all  children  of  these 
districts,  but  they  are  all  having  better  opportuni- 
ties of  education  than  their  parents.  Few  will 
fall  below  the  level  of  the  immigrant  generation, 
and  an  appreciable  proportion  of  them,  through 
special  training  and  oj)portunities,  are  rising  to  a 
wholly  new  level  of  capability  and  resource. 

There  is  a  much  greater  uniformity  of  industrial 
status  in  these  districts  than  in  any  other  part  of 
the  city.  The  North  End  is  so  particularly  char- 
acterized by  this  sameness  that  it  proved  difficult 
to  register  on  a  map  the  slight  shades  of  difference 
from  block  to  block  in  that  district.  It  is  a  great 
community  of  the  unskilled  —  of  those,  on  the  one 
hand,  who  have  not  yet  had  time  enough  to  rise, 
and  those,  on  the  other,  who  are  the  stragglers  left 
behind  by  the  more  enterprising  of  their  kind. 

As  there  are  in  these  districts  several  large 
establishments  supplying  temporary  quarters  for 
homeless  men,  it  will  be  understood  that  the  tramp 


LIVELIHOOD  127 

finds  ample  winter  quarters  here.  The  typical 
guests  at  these  places  subsist  by  street  begging 
and  petty  thieving,  with  occasional  jobs.  The  daily 
goal  of  their  hopes  is  a  night's  lodging  and  strong 
drink  as  much  as  possible,  with  or  without  food. 
Their  "  change  of  air "  takes  the  form  of  a  few 
months  down  the  harbor  at  the  House  of  Correc- 
tion or  the  Almshouse.  In  the  cheap  lodging- 
houses,  besides  tramps,  there  are  undoubtedly  a 
few  genuine  "  journeymen,"  traveling  in  search  of 
work.  Some  sailors  and  fishermen  also  stop  here 
during  the  interim  of  their  voyages,  —  such  as  do 
not  go  to  the  special  boarding-houses  for  men  of 
sea-faring  occupations.  Among  this  floating  popu- 
lation, and  closely  allied  to  it,  is  a  considerable 
class  of  casual  workmen.  Their  way  of  life  is 
partly  created  by  the  uncertainties  of  employment 
that  go  with  all  dock  and  water-side  industries, 
though  as  important  a  cause  is  the  general  degen- 
erating tendencies  that  spring  out  of  tenement- 
house  life.  Specimens  of  this  grade  may  be  seen  at 
any  time  lounging  about  or  staggering  away  from 
the  saloons  on  Commercial  Street.  It  must  not  be 
thought,  of  course,  that  these  degraded  specimens 
constitute  more  than  the  residuum  of  the  men  en- 
gaged in  the  industries  of  the  harbor.  The  mass 
of  the  men   regularly  attached  to  the  dock  and 


128  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

shipping  interests  find  their  employment  more  or 
less  irregular,  and  there  is  danger  always  that  this 
irresponsible  class  beneath,  with  its  crude,  ravenous 
desires,  will  offer  to  do  their  work  at  a  lower  wage 
than  they  in  their  more  human  way  can  live  upon. 
During  recent  years  there  has  not  appeared  any 
serious  problem  of  the  unemployed  in  these  dis- 
tricts. There  are,  of  course,  occasional  difficulties, 
as  when  the  anti-sweating  law  went  into  effect, 
throwing  many  Jews  out  of  work,  or  when  by  a 
change  of  city  administration  many  Irish  employees 
find  themselves  "  on  the  bricks,"  or  when  within 
a  few  weeks  there  are  several  thousand  newly  ar- 
rived Itahans  thrown  upon  the  labor  market.  But 
ordinarily  the  permanently  unemployed  are  a  very 
small  remnant.  Many  Italians  may  be  seen  loaf- 
ing about  North  Square,  but  as  a  rule  they  are 
simply  waiting  between  jobs  on  large  construction 
works.  The  Jews  are  not  inclined  even  to  wait 
between  jobs,  though  they  cannot  turn  so  easily  as 
formerly  to  garment-making  or  even  to  junk  col- 
lecting, since  those  occupations  have  been  placed 
under  license,  with  special  restrictions  and  regula- 
tions. On  the  whole,  however,  the  only  Jews  who 
are  not  working  are  the  white-bearded  elders  who 
sit  on  the  synagogue  stej)s. 
»"     How  people  subsist  when  out  of  work  is  a  ques- 


LIVELIHOOD  129 

tion  which  is  exceedingly  difficult  for  the  outsider 
to  understand.  Ordinarily  families  have  some  bit 
of  savings  to  fall  back  upon.  Then  there  are  the 
small  basement  stores  giving  credit.  There  are 
occasional  small  jobs.  Perhaps  the  wife  can  go 
out  to  work,  or  the  children  are  pressed  into 
employment.  Relatives  and  friends  often  go  to 
surprising  lengths  in  supplying  food  and  loaning 
money.  There  are  successive  journeys  to  the 
pawnshop.  All  the  time  subsidies  of  charitable 
relief  are  unfortunately  more  available  than  re- 
courses in  the  way  of  self-support. 

The  lowest  grade  of  regularly  paid  employment 
in  these  districts  is  garment  work.  It  is  done  by 
the  day  or  by  the  piece.  In  the  shops,  women 
earn  from  |3  to  $5  a  week,  men  from  $9  to  $12 
and  upward.  The  comparatively  unskilled  nature 
of  the  work,  and  the  almost  unlimited  supply  of 
operatives,  make  competition  for  employment  very 
intense.  Women  sewing  at  home  cannot  earn  more 
than  thirty  or  forty  cents  in  a  long  day. 

ItaHan  gang  laborers  formerly  received  only 
$1.25  per  day,  but  they  are  now  freely  offered 
$1.50  or  $1.75.  This  is  for  work  at  a  distance. 
They  have  to  pay  their  carfare,  and  there  are  al- 
ways possibilities  that  their  wages  will  be  heavily 
drawn  upon  for  their  victualling  and  shanty  accom- 


130  AMERICANS  IN  FEOCESS 

modations.  Considering  how  much  time  they  lose 
during  the  year,  they  are  probably  no  better  off 
than  the  fruit  hawkers,  who  make  on  the  average 
$5  or  $6  per  week.  Italian  women  on  farms  earn 
$1  per  day.  The  Italian  hurdy-gurdy  grinder, 
with  the  tambourine  girl  in  peasant  costume,  who 
as  a  rule  hires  his  instrument  by  the  day,  has  a 
somewhat  larger  income  than  this,  and  considers 
himself  much  superior  to  his  horny-handed  coun- 
tryman —  a  leisured  aristocrat,  so  to  speak. 

Among  the  Irish  part  of  the  population,  the 
standard  wage  is  f  2  per  diem,  the  rate  paid  to 
the  laborers  in  the  city  departments.  For  simi- 
lar employment  on  corporation  works  and  in  con- 
nection with  building  operations  the  wage  is  f  1.75. 
There  is  also  a  choice  between  the  two  sorts  of 
employment  in  the  number  of  months  in  the  year 
during  which  men  must  lie  off  —  the  time  being 
shortest  in  city  work  —  and  the  amount  of  stren- 
uousness  exacted,  the  city  here  being  also  the 
most  indulgent  employer.  Teaming,  cab  driving, 
freight  handling  and  dock  work  are  paid  for  at 
rates  a  little  lower.  Longshoremen  work  by  the 
hour  at  from  twenty-five  to  sixty  cents,  the  latter 
amount  being  for  evening  and  Sunday  labor.  Sail- 
ors receive  f  30  per  month.  Fishermen  still  have 
the  old-time  cooperative  system  of  payment,  —  the 


LIVELIHOOD  131 

ship  having  one  fourth  of  the  value  of  the  catch,  and 
the  remainder,  after  expenses  have  been  deducted, 
going  to  the  master  and  the  men. 

The  North  and  West  Ends  are  both  singularly 
deficient  in  artisans  and  mechanics.  Men  of  that 
grade  of  skill  in  the  Irish  population  have  to  a  large 
extent  moved  elsewhere,  and  the  type  has  developed 
but  httle  among  the  Jewish  and,  as  yet,  among 
the  Italian  population.  The  specially  capable  and 
enterprising  ones  rise  quickly  out  of  the  ranks  of 
the  unskilled,  leap  over  the  skilled-labor  stage,  and 
become  clerks  or  shopkeepers.  Most  of  the  skilled 
labor  class  is  found  in  the  better  streets  of  the  West 
End,  some  of  them  being  young  men  in  the  lodging- 
houses  on  the  hill  slope.  Their  wages  run  from 
$2.25  to  13.25  per  day,  with  more  or  less  loss  of 
time  during  the  year,  according  to  season.  Some 
of  the  Jews  have  a  profitable  type  of  skilled  labor 
in  cigar-making.  The  wages  are  from  815  to  $25 
per  week,  with  little  loss  of  time  during  the  year. 
Jewish  and  Italian  bakers  receive  about  flO  per 
week.  In  aU.  trades  which  they  enter,  the  Italians 
are  still  somewhat  below  the  usual  standard  of 
wages.  This  is  true  of  the  barbers,  for  instance, 
who  receive  from  16  to  |10  per  week.  "  Italian 
labor  "  is  a  standing  bugaboo  among  the  working 
classes  of  the  city,  and  only  time  can  remove  its 


132  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

meaning.  Negroes  engaged  in  personal  service 
have  comfortable  incomes.  The  wages  of  waiters 
are  of  course  often  but  the  smaller  part  of  their 
receipts.  Sleeping-car  porters  are  the  magnates  of 
the  colored  servant  class.  They  often  take  in  f  100 
a  month. 

Shopgirls  receive  $5  or  $Q  per  week.  Women 
stenographers  and  clerks  in  business  offices  have 
from  $6  to  $10  per  week,  and  more  in  cases  of 
special  ability.  The  ordinary  weekly  wage  of  men 
clerks  ranges  from  flO  to  $15. 

The  mass  of  small  Jewish  shopkeepers  do  not 
make  more  than  a  bare  Hving  out  of  their  trade. 
Many  of  the  little  basement  stores  are  only  auxil- 
iary sources  of  income.  In  some  instances,  even  the 
basement  store  is  a  source  of  substantial  gains. 
Under  such  circumstances  the  rent  is  very  low 
and  the  prices  correspondingly  less.  In  one  case 
of  a  basement  store,  this  method  of  competition  is 
so  successful  that,  with  the  whole  family  emploj^ed, 
an  annual  business  of  f  10,000  is  transacted,  with 
a  net  profit  of  twenty-five  per  cent.  This  is  the 
rate  of  profit  on  which  all  Jewish  dealers  calculate. 
Some  of  the  woolen  firms  do  a  gross  business  of 
140,000  or  150,000  a  year. 

The  question  of  times  and  seasons  in  the  North 
and  West  End  industry  is  a  complicated  and  serious 


LIVELIHOOD  133 

one.  This  is  particularly  true  in  the  garment 
trade.  There  is  a  slack  time  of  sometimes  two 
months,  from  August  to  October,  and  another  of 
equal  length  after  Christmas.  The  Jews  are  em- 
barrassed with  regard  to  the  Sabbath.  Kecently 
arrived  immigrants  lose  both  Saturday  and  Sunday, 
but  after  a  time  conscientious  scruples  begin  to  give 
way.  The  loss  of  both  days  is  too  heavily  felt, 
and  the  employer,  who  is  naturally  under  special 
pressure  to  have  work  finished  at  the  end  of  the 
week,  can  ill  afford  to  retain  help  which  drops  out 
at  the  moment  of  special  need.  So  far  as  Jewish 
stores  go,  conditions  vary  between  being  closed 
during  the  whole  of  both  days  and  being  stealthily 
open  during  the  whole  of  both  days.  The  police, 
however,  follow  up  with  some  degree  of  vigor  the 
matter  of  Sunday  closing. 

Garment  work  done  at  the  homes  cannot  be  regu- 
lated either  as  to  days  or  hours ;  and  to  some  ex- 
tent work  is  carried  from  the  shops  by  employees 
to  be  finished  at  home,  against  the  chance  of  discov- 
ery by  the  factory  inspectors.  The  workshops,  be- 
sides coming  uuJ/^r  strict  sanitary  restrictions,  are 
of  course  subject  to  the  State  regulation  of  fifty- 
eight  hours  as  the  maximum  weekly  working  time 
in  all  manufacturing  establishments.  The  limit  of 
sixty  hours  for  the  week's  work  in  mercantile  estab- 


134  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

lishments,  which  was  set  a  year  ago  by  the  State, 
will,  when  its  enforcement  is  f ally  organized,  bring 
much  relief  to  many  employees  in  the  small  stores 
in  this  part  of  the  city.  For  those  who  work  in 
the  large  downtown  stores,  the  working  day  is  uni- 
versally not  so  long  as  the  maximum  limit  allowed 
by  the  law.  Italian  laborers  have  their  busy  season 
during  the  spring  and  summer.  As  a  rule  they 
have  no  protection  as  to  the  hours  of  work,  and 
their  day  ordinarily  is  one  of  ten  hours.  The 
dock  and  water-side  laborers  work  by  the  hour  at 
somewhat  irregular  intervals.  Expressmen  and 
truckmen  have  long  and  elastic  hours.  The  city 
laborer,  as  part  of  model  conditions,  has  the  eight- 
hour  day. 

The  effort  to  classify  the  different  industrial 
grades  of  these  districts,  and  to  make  out  the  rela- 
tive numerical  strength  of  each,  is  beset  by  special 
difficulties,  and  the  result  can  only  be  broadly  sug- 
gestive of  the  situation.  The  entire  mass  of  the 
garment-workers,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  men 
obviously  attached  to  downtown  tailoring  establish- 
ments, must  be  included  among  the  unskilled. 
Some  of  this  large  number  already  belong  to  the 
higher  grade,  and  many  will  no  doubt  within  a  few 
years  stand  either  among  the  skilled  or  among  the 
clerks  and  shopkeepers. 


LIVELIHOOD  135 

On  the  other  hand,  all  of  the  trading  class,  with 
the  exception  of  peddlers  and  organ  grinders,  may 
be  included  among  the  clerks.  Many  of  these, 
so  far  as  income  is  concerned,  are  no  higher  than 
the  unskilled,  but  they  represent  in  their  personal 
history  a  step  up  from  the  level  of  unskilled  labor 
and  a  step  nearer  the  social  condition  of  the  shop- 
keeper class. 

The  proportion  of  the  dependent  classes  may  be 
broadly  estimated  from  the  reports  of  public  and 
private  charities  in  these  districts.  Such  reports 
indicate  that  about  twelve  per  cent,  of  the  popu- 
lation in  the  North  End,  and  about  nine  per  cent, 
in  the  West  End,  have  received  some  form  of 
charitable  relief  within  the  past  two  years.  These 
proportions  would  include  practically  all  of  those 
who  belong  distinctly  to  the  grades  of  casual  and 
intermittent  workers,  together  with  tramps,  loafers 
and  semi-criminals.  These  three  lowest  types, 
judging  from  returns  made  by  proprietors  of  cheap 
lodging-houses  for  the  police  records,  may  be  esti- 
mated at  three  per  cent,  for  the  North  End  and 
two  per  cent,  for  the  West  End. 

The  industrial  character  of  the  bulk  of  the 
population  may  be  analyzed  satisfactorily  by  means 
of  the  Assessors'  List,  which  for  purposes  of  iden- 
tification gives  the  occupation  of  each  man  over 


136  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

twenty  years  of  age  in  the  city.  The  list  for  1901 
for  these  districts  contains  7853  names  for  the 
North  End,  13,170  for  the  West  End.  A  classi- 
fication and  count  of  the  occupations  represented 
show  that  for  the  North  End  unskilled  laborers, 
including  garment- workers  and  a  few  other  inferior 
trades,  number  5068  ;  skilled  workmen,  receiving 
standard  wages,  1317;  clerks,  superior  workmen 
and  shopkeepers,  1239.  Those  entered  without 
occupation,  chiefly  old  men,  foot  up  to  121,  while 
to  professional  men  and  downtown  merchants  not 
more  than  108  can  be  credited.  For  the  West 
End  the  corresponding  figures  are :  unskilled, 
5603  ;  skilled,  2431 ;  clerks,  4699  ;  without  occu- 
pation, 197  ;  professional  and  commercial,  240. 

These  numbers  for  men  in  different  parts  of  the 
districts  represent  slightly  different  totals  for  the 
entire  population.  The  total  is  slightly  larger  in 
proportion  in  the  lodging-houses  than  in  the  tene- 
ment houses,  reflecting  the  large  proportion  of  wo- 
men lodgers.  Taking  out  the  percentages  already 
allowed  to  the  loafer,  casual  and  intermittent 
classes,  and  charging  a  majority  of  these  to  the 
unskilled  laborers  and  a  majority  of  the  remainder 
to  the  unskilled  workmen,  we  may  distribute  those 
without  occupation,  the  veterans,  proportionally 
among  the  three  chief  classes. 


Map  Illustrating  the 

INDUSTRIAL  CHARACTER 

of  the 
POPULATION 

In    the 

WEST   END 

BOSTON. 


LIVELIHOOD  137 

The  result  for  the  North  End  is :  the  unskilled 
labor  class,  regularly  employed,  fifty-eight  per 
cent. ;  the  mechanic  and  artisan  class,  earning 
standard  wages,  fourteen  per  cent. ;  the  clerk  and 
shopkeeper  class,  fourteen  per  cent.;  the  profes- 
sional and  mercantile  class,  two  per  cent. 

The  result  for  the  West  End  is :  unskilled, 
forty-one  per  cent. ;  mechanics  and  artisans,  seven- 
teen per  cent. ;  clerks  and  shopkeepers,  thirty-one 
per  cent. ;  professional  and  business  men,  two  per 
cent.i 

The  distribution  of  the  narrow  incomes  of  the 
vast  majority  of  North  and  West  End  bread-win- 
ners so  as  to  supply  their  large  households  with 
the  costly  necessaries  of  life  is  obviously  a  very 
anxious  matter.  An  ignorant  consumer,  dealing 
with  a  grasping  landlord  and  an  often  more  or  less 

^  Of  course  full  statistical  value  is  not  claimed  for  these 
figures.  They  are  presented  as  affording  from  the  best  available 
data  a  sufficient  indication  of  the  economic  complexion  of  these 
communities.  Under  this  reckoning,  about  thirty  per  cent,  of 
West  End  people,  and  about  forty  per  cent,  of  North  End  people, 
are  below  the  line  of  poverty  as  set  by  Charles  Booth  in  his 
London  studies.  The  part  of  the  South  End  described  in  The 
City  Wilderness  stands  a  few  points  higher  than  the  West  End. 
In  London  there  are  about  thirty  districts,  each  having  as  many 
inhabitants  as  the  North  End,  that  stand  lower  than  it  on  the 
scale  of  poverty,  and  nearly  seventy  that  stand  lower  than  the 
West  End. 


138  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

fraudulent  dealer,  is  heavily  handicapped,  even  with 
the  best  use  of  his  very  limited  resources.  In 
many  cases  the  one  condition  which  makes  the 
situation  possible  is  that  in  which  the  housewife, 
charged  with  the  responsibility  of  treasurer  and 
bursar,  devotes  a  degree  of  native  intelligence  to 
her  expenditure,  and  to  the  care  of  the  home  and 
the  preparation  of  the  food  after  it  is  bought. 

Rent  at  the  North  and  West  Ends  is  somewhat 
higher  than  in  any  other  tenement-house  quarter 
in  the  city,  because  of  the  high  land  values  ad- 
jacent to  the  city's  great  traffic.  Two  of  the 
nationalities,  on  account  of  social  prejudice,  are 
compelled  to  pay  somewhat  higher  rents  than  the 
others,  —  the  Jews  and  the  Negroes.  Jews,  in 
fact,  seem  to  be  willing  to  pay  high  rents,  reducing 
the  average  cost  by  crowding  the  rooms  of  their 
tenements.  They  tend  thus  to  make  rents  higher 
for  others,  Italians  reduce  the  cost  of  the  rent  per 
person  in  the  same  way,  without  being  so  willing  to 
pay  more  when  the  house  has  a  showy  front.  In 
general,  it  may  be  said  that  families  do  not  pay  a 
larger  share  of  their  incomes  for  rent  in  the  North 
and  West  Ends  than  in  other  districts  of  the  city, 
but  get  less  for  their  money.  In  the  vast  majority 
of  cases,  the  amount  of  the  rental  charge  comes 
between  two  and  three  dollars  a  week. 


LIVELIHOOD  139 

A  large  part  of  the  population  is  huddled  into 
old  houses  originally  built  for  the  use  of  single 
families.  Many  of  the  smaller  tenement  houses 
are  built  in  rear  yards  and  courts.  There  are  many 
large  newly  built  tenement  blocks,  in  which  the  evil 
devices  involved  in  making  over  old  houses  are  per- 
petuated in  the  new.  This  process  is  still  going  on 
at  a  rapid  rate,  particularly  in  the  West  End.  The 
most  recent  new  or  remodeled  structures  generally 
take  the  form  of  apartment  houses  with  some  ap- 
pearance of  privacy  at  the  entrance,  some  modern 
conveniences  and  often  but  one  family  to  a  floor. 
The  outer  appearance  is  extremely  deceptive,  and 
a  few  years  will  work  havoc  with  the  flimsy  mate- 
rials out  of  which  these  buildings  are  constructed ; 
yet  for  the  present  they  represent  an  advance  for  the 
tenants.  A  somewhat  poorer  yet  very  worthy  class 
is  found  in  the  large  blocks  of  model  tenement 
houses  representing  "  philanthropy  and  five  per 
cent." 

The  Jews,  inured  through  long  centuries  to  over- 
crowding and  uncleanliness,  adjust  themselves  to 
such  surroundings  with  unfortunate  ease.  The 
Italians,  while  not  models  in  the  matter  of  cleanli- 
ness and  the  reserves  of  life,  seek  to  make  their 
windows  and  narrow  courts  suggestive  of  the  green 
world  from  which  most  of  them  have  come,  and  in 


140  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

which  a  better  order  of  living  was  not  so  over- 
whelmingly difficult.  The  Portuguese  and  the 
Negroes,  not  standing  so  high  as  neighboring  types 
in  the  matter  of  the  more  serious  sanctions  of  life, 
are  both  strongly  inclined  to  cleanliness  in  their 
homes.  There  are  actually  streets  in  the  West 
End  where,  while  Jews  are  moving  in,  Negro  house- 
wives are  gathering  up  their  skirts  and  seeking  a 
more  spotless  environment. 

Much  attention  has  been  given  by  public  authori- 
ties to  the  cheap  lodging-houses  in  this  part  of 
the  city,  and  some  slight  leveling  up  in  their 
standard  is  apparent.  There  are  a  number  of 
second-rate  hotels  in  both  districts,  —  some  of  them 
resorts  of  a  degrading  type,  some  better  grade 
lodging-houses,  some  simply  saloons  with  liberty 
to  sell  liquor  on  Sunday.  The  boarding-house 
does  not  seem  to  have  passed  away  quite  so  com- 
pletely in  the  West  End  as  in  the  South  End, 
and  there  are  not  so  many  separate  basement 
dining-rooms ;  but  the  background  of  life  on  the 
slope  of  Beacon  Hill  beyond  the  State  House  is 
essentially  the  same  as  that  of  the  respectable- 
appearing  decadent  streets  of  the  South  End. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  these  districts  are  so 
near  the  city's  best  base  of  supply  for  meat  and 
vegetables,  the  people  trade  at  very  small  shops. 


LIVELIHOOD  141 

and  of  course  are  compelled  to  follow  the  extrava- 
gant method  of  buying  in  small  quantities.  The 
Jewish  meat  supply  is  in  the  hands  of  a  local  Jew- 
ish monopolist,  and  the  savage  riots  of  the  New 
York  Ghetto  were  reproduced  in  the  North  End 
when  the  price  of  meat  recently  rose  so  high.  The 
evidence  was  quite  clear  that  the  local  wholesaler 
had  undertaken  to  increase  the  momentum  of  ris- 
ing prices  in  order  to  secure  special  personal  ad- 
vantage. 

The  Jews'  faithfulness  to  the  dietetic  code  of 
the  Mosaic  law  makes  them  no  more  strange  and 
individual  in  their  notions  about  food  than  are  the 
Italians.  They  use  but  little  meat.  Crabs  and 
razor  fish  are  a  staple.  Occasionally  they  have 
chicken  or  pork.  Beef  is  a  rare  luxury.  The  Ital- 
ians like  their  food  greasy,  highly  spiced  and  fla- 
vored with  garlic  or  onions.  A  dish  so  dressed 
will  have  for  a  body  nothing  more  substantial  than 
macaroni.  With  this  they  will  have  French  bread, 
beer  and  some  partly  spoiled  fruit  or  dried  olives. 
Such  a  diet  is  inexpensive  so  far  as  first  cost  is  con- 
cerned, but  a  sturdy  growth  cannot  be  made  upon  it. 
The  frequency  of  rickets  among  Italian  children,  and 
the  general  high  average  of  sickness  among  adidts, 
is  owing  very  largely  to  their  choice  of  food. 
Their  liking  for  this  strong-tasting  but  innutritions 


142  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

food  is  so  deep  seated  that  if  they  go  to  a  hospital 
they  consider  themselves  wronged  when  they  are 
placed  upon  a  diet  of  milk  and  beefsteak. 

As  in  the  South  End,  there  has  been  of  late 
years  a  marked  increase  in  the  number  of  restau- 
rants, which  are  common  along  nearly  all  the 
chief  streets.  Hardly  one  of  them  is  in  the  least 
clean  or  attractive.  The  little  Italian  eating- 
places  in  the  North  End  have  about  them  some  of 
the  atmosphere  of  the  Continental  cafe  ;  but  in  the 
West  End  restaurants,  the  hapless  lodger  finds 
not  even  that  solace  to  counteract  the  poor  quality 
of  his  food.  Nearly  all  the  Negroes  continue  to 
have  some  sort  of  home  attachment,  and  they  have 
good  food  when  they  can  possibly  afford  it.  Their 
comparatively  high  standard  as  to  the  conditions  of 
home  life  probably  reflects  their  hereditary  associa- 
tions as  servants  in  homes  of  the  well-to-do.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  a  Negro  does  not  neglect  his 
clothes.  Many  young  colored  people  from  the  West 
End,  —  as  seen,  for  instance,  at  a  band  concert  on 
Boston  Common,  —  while  showing  an  undue  ex- 
penditure in  clothes,  are  yet  dressed  becomingly. 

The  Jews  are  also  very  fond  of  fine  clothes,  or 
at  least  of  the  appearance  of  such.  The  women, 
as  family  incomes  increase,  appear  in  cotton  velvet 
or  brocaded   satinet,  with  colored  feathers  in  their 


LIVELIHOOD  143 

hats,  mock  sealskin  coats  and  dubious  jewelry. 
The  Italians  are  more  frugal,  and  do  not  cultivate 
an  appearance  of  elegance.  The  women  are  satis- 
fied with  simple  fabrics  in  bright  colors.  The  men 
do  not  affect  broadcloth,  as  Jewish  men  do,  but  are 
contented  on  Sunday  —  if  the  day  be  marked  by 
nothing  more  —  with  a  gay  necktie,  curled  and 
unctuous  hair  and  a  brilliant  polish  to  their  shoes. 
The  desire  for  clothing  of  American  cut  is  one 
that  rises  strong  in  the  breast  of  the  immigrant 
immediately  upon  his  arrival,  and  the  imported 
styles  become  less  and  less  in  evidence  every  year. 
Long  beards  among  the  Jewish  men,  and  wigs 
among  the  women,  are  seen  but  little  as  compared 
with  a  few  years  ago.  The  inclination  of  the 
Jews  to  move  away  from  the  antiquated  tenement 
houses  of  the  North  End  into  the  new  flats  of  the 
West  End,  where  they  have  figured  plush  furni- 
ture, flowered  carpets,  and  even  pianos,  is  very 
marked.  In  such  ways  there  is  sometimes  among 
the  Jews,  particularly  on  the  part  of  the  women, 
a  distinct  tendency  toward  extravagance.  The 
secret  of  such  an  unexpected  phenomenon  is  undue 
social  ambition.  Probably  no  nationality  is  so 
keenly  alert  as  the  Jews  to  the  various  marks 
that  register  gradual  advancement  to  higher  and 
higher  social  levels. 


144  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

All  the  nationalities  at  the  North  and  West 
Ends  make  considerable  contributions  to  the  sup- 
port of  religion,  an  outlay  which,  even  from  the 
most  superficial  point  of  view,  is  an  exceedingly 
useful  public  investment.  Parents  are  more  and 
more  putting  themselves  at  pains  and  cost  to  secure 
the  benefits  of  education  beyond  the  grammar 
school  for  their  boys,  and,  to  some  extent,  for 
their  girls.  This  is  of  course  especially  the  case 
among  the  Jews,  whose  intellectuality  is  a  distin- 
guishing trait.  All  classes  spend  some  money  upon 
the  theatre  —  on  the  whole,  beneficially.  The 
Italians  give  much  attention  to  public  recreation. 
Considerable  expense  is  incurred  by  them  on  feast 
days  and  Italian  national  holidays. 

Even  microscopic  incomes  do  not  forbid  to  the 
Italians,  much  less  to  the  Jews,  the  practice  of 
thrift.  Italians  save  to  go  back  to  Italy,  or  to 
bring  friends  over.  Some  save  and  become  land- 
holders and  small  business  men.  Many  of  those 
who  are  diggers  in  the  ditch  put  by  one  hundred 
dollars  in  the  course  of  a  year.  Italians  do  not 
easily  fall  back  upon  charitable  agencies ;  but,  for 
those  who  slip,  determined  spurring  is  needed  in 
order  to  get  them  well  under  way  again.  Jews 
are  not  likely  to  need  charity,  but  when  they  do 
they  seem  not  to  have  much  self-respect   in  the 


LIVELIHOOD  145 

matter,  looking  upon   such  relief  as  another  re- 
source to  be  availed  of  to  the  utmost  limit. 

Among  Jews  there  are  two  types  of  providence. 
One  sort  of  person  places  his  family  upon  the  low- 
est possible  line  as  to  home  conditions,  food  and 
clothing,  in  order  to  make  the  utmost  margin  be- 
tween his  expenditures  and  his  income.  He  intends 
some  day  to  have  things  different,  but  he  wishes  to 
become  a  capitalist  and  make  his  living  by  profits 
rather  than  by  wages,  at  the  earliest  possible  mo- 
ment. His  family  is  under  degrading  conditions ; 
he  himself  is  ill  nourished,  and  his  children  are 
dwarfed  physically  and  morally.  The  other  t3rpe 
is  also  eager  to  become  a  capitalist,  but  he  wishes, 
from  the  beginning,  to  have  his  family  under 
healthful  and  encouraging  conditions.  Instead  of 
taking  up  his  abode  in  some  swarming,  reeking 
court  at  the  North  End,  he  lives  in  a  comfortable 
little  flat  at  the  West  End.  He  does  not  save  so 
rapidly,  but  he  is  in  condition  to  earn  more, 
to  enjoy  more,  and  to  be  an  increasingly  more  suc- 
cessful man  in  the  future ;  his  children,  meanwhile, 
are  laying  the  foundation  of  a  fair  education  and  a 
reasonably  healthy  physical  and  moral  adult  life. 
^  The  inhabitants  of  the  North  and  West  Ends 
have  their  obvious  economic  sins.  The  shame  of 
a  variety  of   underhanded  methods  in  trade,  not 


146  AMERICANS  IN  PEOCESS 

easily  punishable  by  law,  must  be  laid  at  the  door 
of  a  certain  type  of  Jew.  More  serious  than  any 
of  these  things,  however,  is  the  danger  that  lurks 
in  the  low  standard  of  wages  and  expenditure 
which  all  Jews  and  Italians  bring  in  with  them, 
and  in  which  great  numbers  persist.  So  long  and 
so  far  as  this  state  of  things  continues,  the  new- 
comer remains  an  enemy  to  all  that  is  best  in 
American  life,  and  cannot  expect  to  be  received 
into  the  friendly  fellowship  of  American  citizens. 
The  American  "  standard  of  living  and  of  life  "  is 
being  intrenched  in  various  ways,  —  by  the  com- 
monwealth and  the  municipality,  by  working-class 
regidations  and  sentiments.  It  has  suffered  seri- 
ously, and  stin  is  threatened.  The  issue  wiU 
depend  on  the  effect  of  the  total  civilization  of 
the  city  in  amplifying  the  range  of  wants  among 
these  new  peoples.  In  this  way  the  energy,  pro- 
ductive capacity  and  ambition  of  the  mass  of 
them  will  be  brought  to  a  higher  point.  At  the 
same  time,  that  base,  passionate  enterprise  wiU  be 
tempered  which  would  ruthlessly  sacrifice  kindred 
and  neighbor  for  the  dream  of  ultimate  prosperity^ 


CHAPTER  VI 

TRAFFIC   IN   CITIZENSHIP 

"  After  all,  the  predominating  issue  is  —  work." 
The  congressional  candidate  had  made  a  few  flour- 
ishes about  matters  of  concern  to  the  nation,  such 
as  militarism  and  trusts.  This  was  his  way  of  arriv- 
ing at  reality  in  the  North  End.  He  then  pro- 
ceeded to  explain  that  by  securing  from  the  national 
government  an  appropriation  of  millions  of  dollars 
to  deepen  the  harbor  at  Boston,  he  would  open  up 
to  the  men  whose  humble  abodes  are  near  the  har- 
bor docks  an  almost  endless  vista  of  jobs.  The 
deeper  harbor  will  lead  to  the  erection  of  new 
docks,  which  men  must  needs  be  employed  upon  to 
build.  Docks  mean  dockers.  New  ships  will  come 
and  must  be  manned.  This  growth  will  imply  new 
factories  and  new  warehouses,  which  men  must 
build,  and  which  once  opened  will  remain  as  well- 
springs  of  employment  forever. 

The  tendency  to  localize  and  domesticate  the 
universal  is  one  of  the  master  motives  of  ward  poli- 
tics.    There  is  m  the  mind  of  the  voter  a  marked 


148  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

absence  of  sucli  faculty  of  abstraction  as  will  en- 
able him  to  feel  himself  receiving  advantage  from 
the  general  action  of  the  community  in  its  large, 
ordinary  functions.  These  are  to  him  like  the 
atmosphere.  He  wishes  to  see  some  new,  divisible 
fruitage  produced  toward  the  enlargement  of  his 
meagre  life.  This  feeling  is  so  pervasive  that  the 
fulfillment  of  the  individual  voter's  insistent  need 
becomes  the  decisive  test  of  political  and  public 
service. 

Honesty  and  special  capacity  in  public  officials 
is  a  virtue  which  has  some  value  in  campaigns,  but 
even  then  it  is  usually  so  indiscriminately  ascribed 
to  all  candidates  as  to  make  it  the  mere  material 
of  compliment  and  persiflage.  A  hundred  times 
more  worth  while  than  general  honesty  in  the  eyes 
of  the  local  electorate  is  fair  play.  The  serious 
charge  against  an  office-holder  is  not  "  he  was  dis- 
honest," but  "  he  was  greedy ;  "  he  did  not  im- 
part to  his  constituency  enough  of  the  results  of  his 
influence  and  power.  The  remedy  does  not  seem 
to  the  people  to  be  that  of  the  business  man,  nor 
yet  that  of  the  scholar  in  politics.  Civil  service 
reform  means  to  them  administration  in  the  hands 
of  a  class  that  may  be  honest  in  an  arid  sort  of 
way,  but  not  serviceable  or  responsible,  so  far  as 
they  are  concerned.     The  "  greedy  "  politician  can 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  149 

be  and  is  soon  displaced  by  one  who  will  be 
"  fair."  There  is  an  ingrained  and  powerful  feel- 
ing that  the  hope  of  the  poorer  and  alien  classes 
is  in  holding  blindly  together.  The  reformer  is, 
in  fact,  looked  upon  with  some  of  the  distrust  and 
fear  in  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  equally  truth- 
loving  heretic  was  viewed,  —  as  one  who  would  turn 
distraught  humanity  aside  from  the  only  way  of 
salvation. 

Ordinary  public  standards  of  intellectual  fitness 
count  for  little  or  nothing  in  these  parts  of  the  city. 
It  is,  in  fact,  a  distinct  hindrance  in  a  candidate  to 
have  the  air  of  training.  Occasionally  some  young 
politician  is  charged  with  being  a  graduate  of  Har- 
vard ;  and  the  charge  is  denied  resentfully.  One 
of  the  foremost  political  magnates,  a  man  of  un- 
doubted native  abihty,  who  has  held  high  elective 
office  as  a  lawmaker,  is  yet  unable,  after  several 
attempts,  to  secure  admission  to  the  practice  of  the 
law.  Such  a  fact  hardly  creates  a  ripple  of  inter- 
est among  the  rank  and  file  of  his  following. 

There  are  political  virtues  of  different  degrees, 
but  the  greatest  of  these  is  loyalty.  Ward  politics 
is  built  up  out  of  racial,  religious,  industrial  affilia- 
tions ;  out  of  blood  kinship  ;  out  of  childhood  asso- 
ciations, youthful  camaraderie,  general  neighbor- 
hood  sociability.     Party  regularity  is  simply  the 


I 


le50  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

coalescence  of  all  these.  It  is  the  brightest  star 
in  the  crown  of  a  political  veteran  to  have  been 
"  always  regular."  The  frequent  petty  insurrec- 
tions only  show  the  power  of  this  loyalty.  They 
are  family  quarrels.  The  offending  member  is 
still  more  loved  and  even  more  trusted,  so  far  as 
family  interests  are  concerned,  than  any  outsider. 
The  very  disinterestedness  of  the  outsider  makes 
the  family  recoil  from  him.  The  sudden  way  in 
which  the  most  acrimonious  political  breaches  are 
healed  over  shows  the  underlying  fraternal  bond. 
'  Ward  politics  is  an  amplified  scheme  of  family  com- 
-  munism  —  a  modernized  clan.  Some  day  it  may 
perhaps  become  apparent  to  the  historian,  looking 
back,  that  this  clan  life  in  the  midst  of  civilization 
went  with  the  industrial  and  social  confusion  of 
the  time.  The  poor  in  our  cities  have  as  fierce  a 
contest  with  industrial  conditions  as  the  barbarians 
had  against  wild  nature.  The  similarity  of  social 
formation,  of  ethical  standard,  goes  with  the  simi- 
larity of  the  facts  of  the  two  kinds  of  life.  The 
present-day  barbaric  outlook  must  be  altered  if  we 
would  impart  truly  civilized  conceptions  of  politics 
or  of  life  in  general^ 

In  these  northern  wards,  as  in  the  inner  wards 
at  the  South  End,  one  of  the  parties  is  so  strong 
that  there  is  never  any  contest,  and  the  minority 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  151 

party  is  of  consequence  only  in  general  city  elec- 
tions. The  strain  and  conflict  whicli  go  with 
politics  occur  only  when  there  are  faction  fights. 
These  are  not  uncommon,  and  while  they  last  are 
more  intense  than  any  contest  across  party  lines. 
Where  the  party  nomination  is  equivalent  to  an 
election,  it  is  natural  that  there  should  be  keen  com- 
petition within  party  lines.  In  the  fierce  glare  of 
a  faction  fight,  the  true  perspectives  of  ward  poli- 
tics come  out.  The  charges  brought  against  leaders 
by  their  opponents,  and  the  claims  of  service  ren- 
dered which  are  made  in  reply,  show  the  actual 
motive  and  trend  of  politics  in  the  ward, 
f  Sectarian  feeling  is  appealed  to  by  asserting  that 
a  certain  leading  politician  used  the  church  as  a 
tool,  and  that  he  was  dismissed  from  the  altar  by 
the  reverend  pastor.  He  is  accused  of  having 
invited  a  non-Christian  to  officiate  as  bearer  at  a 
funeral.  Racial  feehng  is  goaded  by  the  charge 
that  a  Jewish  office-holder  had  expressed  pro- 
fane contempt  for  the  Irish  ;  and  an  Irish  alder- 
man is  denounced  for  not  having  rushed  to  the 
defense  of  his  Italian  constituents  when  they  were 
classed  with  Negroes  at  a  meeting  of  the  board. 
That  a  certain  leader  is  making  use  of  politics  for 
his  own  enrichment  is  sustained  by  the  charge  that 
he  is  treasurer  of  a  corporation  receiving  numerous 


152  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

contracts ;  that  he  is  one  of  a  real-estate  syndi- 
cate whose  land  is  assessed  at  one  third  of  its 
value ;  that  he  and  his  brothers  own  seven  saloons 
among  them ;  that  one  of  his  lieutenants  in  the 
State  Senate  wronged  and  duped  the  voters  of 
the  constituency  by  taking  money  rather  than 
patronage  for  his  vote  on  a  street  railway  bill.  It 
is  asserted  that  a  prominent  local  political  figure  is 
not  a  resident  of  the  ward,  and  packs  the  voting  list 
with  other  non-residents.  A  poster  calling  atten- 
tion to  these  facts  says  :  "  Home  Kule  is  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  free  government,  which  prin- 
ciple men  died  to  establish.  Why,  therefore, 
should  the  people  of  this  ward  allow  residents  of 
Concord,  Acton,  Winchendon,  Lawrence,  Win- 
throp,  Beachmont,  East  Boston,  the  South  End,  to 
govern  them  ? "  This  same  tyrant  and  usurper 
has,  it  is  said,  secured  the  dismissal  of  many  men 
from  their  work,  and  made  "  saddened  and  broken 
homes  because  heads  of  families  voted  as  they 
thought  was  right."  Not  content  with  a  relentless 
policy  toward  foes,  he  is,  it  is  said,  traitorous  to 
friends  ;  and  it  is  even  hurled  through  the  dense 
pipe-smoke  into  the  teeth  of  the  populace  that  one 
such  victim  of  treachery  actually  died  of  a  broken 
heart. 

The  scene  changes.     Look  on  that  picture  and 


TRAFFIC  m  CITIZENSHIP  153 

on  this ;  trace  here  the  lineaments  of  the  man  whom 
King  Demos  delighteth  to  honor.  He  went  on  the 
hottest  days  to  contractors  and  corporations  seeking 
jobs  for  men  in  the  ward.  He  was  noted  for  the 
"  conspicuousness  of  his  presence  when  wanted." 
The  people  did  not  have  to  "  play  hide  and  seek  " 
with  him ;  when  they  desired  his  services  he  could 
always  be  found.  He  represented  his  constituency 
"  so  earnestly,  so  successfully,  so  untiringly "  in 
the  search  for  employment  for  them.  He  voted  for 
the  abolition  of  civil  service  regulations  that  he 
might  have  more  jobs  to  dispense.  He  voted  to 
control  corporations  having  contracts  with  muni- 
cipalities in  such  way  as  to  make  corporation 
patronage  as  valuable  a  political  asset  as  that  of 
the  municipality  itself.  He  opposed  a  measure 
to  punish  housewives  who  undertook  to  use  milk 
cans  or  jars  for  any  other  purpose  than  that  for 
which  they  were  intended.  He  promoted  a  measure 
compelling  ice  companies  to  sell  five-cent  cakes  of 
ice,  and  a  measure  requiring  gas  companies  to  sell 
their  product  for  seventy-five  cents  per  thousand 
feet.  He  urged  the  boarding  out  of  neglected 
children  in  families  of  the  same  faith  as  that  to 
which  their  parents  belonged.  He  sought  the  re- 
laxation of  some  of  the  restrictions  on  the  use 
of  the  Sabbath ;  and,  though  his  constituents  might 


154  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

not  acknowledge  this  as  a  special  service  to  them- 
selves, worked  for  the  abolition  of  dark  cells  and  of 
the  death  penalty.  Lastly,  he  supported  an  increase 
in  the  tax-rate,  but  only  in  order  to  give  more  em- 
ployment to  laborers  —  not  for  the  sake  of  provid- 
ing "  high  salaries  for  Back  Bay  dudes." 

The  machine  politician  especially  opposes  reform 
measures  like  that  of  civil  service  restrictions  and 
the  secret  ballot.  These  make  it  more  difficult  to 
organize  and  control  the  vote,  to  secure  the  appoint- 
ment of  particular  men,  and,  what  is  more  exas- 
perating, to  hold  the  allegiance  of  men  after  they 
have  been  installed  in  city  jobs.  It  is  not  uncom- 
mon for  political  appointees  whose  positions  have 
been  placed  under  the  protection  of  civil  service 
regulations  to  throw  over  all  obligations  to  the 
political  machine,  and  even  to  move  away  to  a  re- 
mote suburban  district. 

Such  facts  make  it  all  the  more  important  that 
the  work  of  party  organization  should  be  pains- 
takingly done.  In  bringing  out  the  votes  of  these 
wards,  the  ward  committees  may  be  said  to  exhaust 
the  possibilities,  to  use  everything  and  neglect  no- 
thing, in  order  to  produce  results. 

Here,  as  in  the  South  End,i  the  street-comer 
gangs  and  a  variety  of  loosely  organized  clubs  form 

1  The  City  Wilderness,  p.  114,  sq. 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  155 

poKtical  groups,  ready  made  to  the  hand  of  the 
ward  heeler.  In  the  North  End  certain  political 
clubs  leap  into  activity  during  campaign  time.  In 
the  West  End  there  is  a  remarkable  political 
organization  having  rooms  on  the  most  prominent 
square  in  the  ward.  This  club  keeps  up  an  active 
existence  all  the  year  romid,  and  is  the  headquar- 
ters for  the  entire  business  of  machine  politics  of 
the  ward. 

Apart  from  all  formal  organizations,  each  ward 
is  divided  into  several  sections,  and  local  lieutenants 
are  appointed  to  hold  together,  and  bring  to  the  front 
at  the  proper  time,  the  vote  of  their  neighborhoods. 
The  local  lieutenant  devotes  himself  unremittingly 
to  the  people  of  his  section  of  the  ward.  He  keeps 
himself  acquainted  with  their  who]e  round  of  life, 
and  constitutes  himself  the  adviser  and  helper  of 
them  all.  By  unresting  vigilance,  together  with 
a  careful  and  comprehensive  system  of  pohtical 
account  keeping  and  statistics,  he  knows  within  a 
few  votes  just  how  much  strength  his  section  holds 
for  the  party  ticket.  As  campaign  time  approaches 
committees  are  appointed,  who  divide  among  them- 
selves the  responsibility  of  seeing  and  making  sure 
of  all  the  voters  in  these  sub-districts.  The  ardor 
of  propagandism  exhibited  by  these  local  commit- 
tees quite  surpasses  the  proselyting  zeal  of  any  type 


156  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

of  churchman.  Indeed,  the  most  aggressive  soli- 
citors of  trade  could  hardly  equal  them  ;  because  if 
inducements  fail,  they  have  an  organized  power 
of  constraint  behind  them  which  amounts  almost 
to  that  of  the  tax  collector  or  police  magistrate. 
The  care  and  shrewdness  with  which  this  work  is 
done  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  in  the  West 
End  it  is  sometimes  the  custom  to  appoint  one  man 
to  get  out  eight  voters,  and  soon  after  to  appoint 
two  other  men  each  to  get  out  four  of  the  same 
eight.  In  the  North  End  every  imaginable  sup- 
porter of  the  party  has  his  name  enroUed  in  a  card 
catalogue.  Every  such  person  is  visited  in  advance 
of  the  caucus,  and  to  the  utmost  limit  of  the  re- 
sources of  the  machine  —  with  its  knowledge  of 
each  man's  ties,  obligations,  ambitions,  necessities 
—  satisfactorily  "fixed."  At  the  caucus,  and 
again  at  election,  voters,  as  they  appear,  are  checked 
off  by  party  representatives.  When  proceedings 
are  half  over,  trusty  men  are  dispatched  in  every 
direction  throughout  the  ward  to  chase  in  the 
tardy  ones.  "  So  run  I  not  as  uncertainly ;  so 
fight  I  not  as  one  that  beateth  the  air  "  might  be 
taken  as  the  watchword  of  the  ward  politician.  It  is 
because  he  sends  the  arrow  so  straight  to  the  mark, 
the  axe  so  sure  to  the  root  of  the  tree,  that  the  far 
less  determined  reformer  fails  to  overthrow  him. 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  157 

Very  special  efforts  have  to  be  made  to  adapt 
political  methods  to  the  particular  spirit  and  ne- 
cessity of  the  different  nationalities  in  these  cos- 
mopohtan  wards.  There  is  a  constant  tendency 
on  the  part  of  the  Irish  to  move  away  to  better 
favored  parts  of  the  city,  where  they  will  not  be 
subjected  to  so  crowded  conditions  and  to  unpleasant 
association  with  recent  Continental  immigrants. 
As  the  local  political  leaders  are  nearly  all  of  Irish 
origin,  and  as  the  Irish  are  their  surest  and  best 
reliance,  they  make  determined  efforts  to  retain  in 
the  ward  the  remnant  of  the  Irish  population. 
The  Roman  Catholic  churches  of  these  districts, 
which  with  enormous  establishments  are  in  danger 
of  being  left  stranded,  are  working  toward  the 
same  end.  It  is  a  fixed  rule  in  Ward  8  that  no 
man  can  receive  a  job  without  pledging  himself 
to  remain  a  voter  in  the  ward  as  long  as  he  holds 
the  job. 

The  Jews  and  Italians  are  gradually  becoming 
voters  under  pressure  of  leaders  of  their  own,  who 
show  them  the  advantages  of  so  doing.  Nowadays, 
the  Jew  junk  collector  must  have  taken  out  citizen- 
ship papers  before  he  can  get  a  license,  and  the 
Italian  laborer  has  no  prospect  of  being  engaged 
on  city  work  unless  he  be  an  American  citizen. 
Peddlers,  junk  dealers,  fruit  sellers,  organ  grinders, 


158  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

sewing-women,  clothing  manufacturers,  —  all  must 
have  dealings  with  public  officials.  Everybody 
knows,  too,  that  by  mistake  or  otherwise  the  laws 
of  a  strange  country  are  easily  broken.  Under 
such  circumstances  the  value  of  an  accommodating 
expert  in  public  administration  is  soon  realized. 
The  newcomer,  in  establishing  his  home,  finds  that 
some  credit  is  necessary.  The  gas  company  re- 
quires security.  The  politician  —  not  unknown 
to  corporations  —  gives  it.  The  politician  expects 
votes  in  return.  He  has  ways  of  enforcing  his 
displeasure  if  the  votes  are  not  forthcoming.  In 
each  identical  bearing  of  the  social  mechanism 
where  oil  is  needed,  it  is  possible  to  put  sand. 

Finer  considerations  are  by  no  means  lacking. 
It  is  coming  to  be  a  matter  of  racial  pride  and 
loyalty  among  Italians  and  Jews  to  place  them- 
selves on  an  equality  with  those  who  assume  supe- 
riority over  newcomers.  They  wish  to  escape  the 
contempt  with  which  the  ignorant  treat  foreigners  ; 
they  crave  the  full  round  of  American  experience. 
Soon  they  realize  that  their  children  are  to  be 
Americans,  and  this  makes  American  citizenship 
more  clearly  their  own  destiny.  ; 

As  to  party  affiliations,  both  of  these  nation- 
alities, when  first  arrived  in  Boston,  were  inclined 
to  be  Republicans.     They  seemed  to  recognize  in 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  159 

the  Republican  party  a  distinctly  American  organ- 
ization. The  word  republican  is  one  that  the 
Italian  is  familiar  with,  and  it  has  inspiring  asso- 
ciations for  him.  The  Republicans  have  not  had 
the  sagacity  to  take  advantage  of  this  situation. 
They  have  allowed  these  wards  to  be  under  a  tjrpe 
of  leadership  which  is  certainly  as  corrupt  as  that 
of  the  opposite  party,  without  any  of  the  redeeming 
qualities  that  go  with  its  strength.  This  state  of 
things  has  conduced  to  the  change  in  political 
alignment  which  has  taken  place.  It  was  not  a 
spontaneous  movement.  Neither  the  Jew  nor  the 
Italian,  be  it  said,  is  instinctively  drawn  to  the 
Irishman,  nor  he  to  them. 
[  The  Irish  have  made  great  efforts  to  win  the 
Italians  to  the  Democratic  party.  They  are  co- 
religionists, and  they  can  love  each  other  for  their 
common  enmity  to  the  Jew.  At  least  half  the 
Italian  voters  in  the  North  End  are  now  Demo- 
crats. They  make  good  political  workers.  They 
organize  effectively,  and  are  quite  disinterested. 
The  chief  difficulty  about  them  from  the  political 
organizer's  point  of  view  is  that  they  are  split  into 
many  rival  camps,  according  to  the  city  or  province 
in  Italy  from  which  they  camej  The  leaders  of 
these  different  cliques,  in  their  claims  to  recogni- 
tion, are  very  prone  to  exaggerate  the  number  of 


160  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

their  naturalized  followers.  The  Democratic  lead- 
ers have  managed  also  to  secure  a  considerable 
following  among  the  Jews.  Were  these  districts 
not  so  overwhelmingly  Democratic,  the  Jews  could 
be  kept  more  closely  within  the  Republican  fold. 
As  it  is,  the  poorer  ones  are  very  likely  to  be 
Democrats.  They  are  made  to  see,  in  the  machine's 
tangible,  lucrative  ways,  the  advantage  of  support- 
ing the  local  political  powers  that  be.  They  are 
very  difficult  material  for  the  politician.  They  are 
individualists,  quarreling  constantly  among  them- 
selves, each  demanding  to  have  as  good  a  share  as 
the  most  favored  one.  They  do  not  act  in  a  mass 
under  impulses  of  loyalty.  They  are  of  that  very 
uncomfortable  sort  who  "  have  to  be  seen  often." 
They  demand  stated  and  regular  returns  for  politi- 
cal allegiance,  or  else  their  allegiance  is  gone. 

The  Negro  vote  is  for  the  most  part  gerrjrman- 
dered  into  a  Republican  ward.  There  is  some  com- 
petition between  the  parties  for  their  suffrage. 
There  are  three  classes  of  Negro  voters,  each  class 
including  a  considerable  number :  those  who  are 
purchased  at  so  much  a  head ;  those  who  act  under 
leaders  for  a  consideration  of  some  sort ;  honest 
voters  whose  support  is  held  by  their  being  "  recog- 
nized "  in  various  ways. 

The  inducements  brought  to  the  minds  of  the 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  161 

voters  in  these  wards,  it  will  be  seen,  are  of  a 
concrete,  unmistakable  sort.  Of  outright  bribery- 
it  must  be  said  that  there  is  very  little.  Every 
political  step,  however,  involves  some  sort  of  indi- 
rect bribery.  The  whole  course  of  local  political 
procedure  is  beset  with  trickery  and  fraud.  There 
are  specialists  in  naturalization,  each  of  whom 
stands  as  sponsor  to  large  numbers  of  newcomers, 
swearing  falsely  as  to  the  length  of  time  they  have 
been  in  this  country.  They  retain  certain  inter- 
preters to  serve  their  purposes.  The  reading  test 
is  managed  with  considerable  ease.  Under  a 
friendly  registration  officer,  any  rude  attempt  at 
pronouncing  the  words  of  the  Constitution  is  con- 
sidered satisfactory.  Immigrants,  provided  they 
are  familiar  with  the  Roman  alphabet  letters,  after 
a  little  coaching,  summon  intelligence  and  courage 
to  pronounce  a  series  of  English  words,  syllable  by 
syllable,  in  an  incoherent  way ;  and  a  North  End 
wardroom  is  not  the  place  for  stiff  academical 
requirements. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  there  are  often,  if  not 
always,  some  hundreds  of  voters  in  these  districts 
who  do  not  pretend  to  live  in  this  part  of  the  city. 
Many  of  the  '^  boys  "  who  have  moved  away  from 
the  North  End  still  retain  a  "  residence  "  there. 
They  spend  a  night  or  two  at  a  certain  address  at 


162  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

the  first  of  May,  rarely  even  complying  with  the 
letter  of  the  law,  and  then  have  themselves  regis- 
tered as  voters  from  that  address.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible, in  case  of  local  faction  fights,  to  decide  the 
issue  at  a  caucus,  or  in  city  elections  to  affect 
the  general  result,  by  this  "  carpet-bagger  "  vote. 

The  choice  of  men  to  stand  as  candidates  for 
party  nomination  at  the  caucus  is  subject  to  a 
variety  of  considerations.  The  foremost  politi- 
cians have  probably  climbed  the  ladder  of  elective 
fame  so  far  as  ward  politicians  can.  The  West 
End  boss,  who  has  been  to  the  top,  deigns,  like 
"  the  old  man  eloquent,"  to  return  to  lower  posts 
of  statesmanship ;  but  he  is  exceptional.  The  usual 
plan  is  for  the  leader  to  put  forward  some  specially 
trusted  intimate,  often  a  brother  or  a  cousin,  for 
the  important  nominations.  Specially  bright  "  talk- 
ers "  are  likely  to  be  advanced  for  honors  in  the 
City  or  State  legislative  chambers.  Faithful  party 
workers  are  "  rewarded "  by  a  term  in  the  Com- 
mon Council.  It  is  the  policy,  also,  in  both  dis- 
tricts, to  "  recognize  '*  the  Continental  elements  by 
giving  some  of  their  number  small  elective  offices. 
Some  of  these  are  beginning  to  rise  above  the  Com- 
mon Council.  One  Jew  and  one  Italian  from  the 
North  End  have  served  in  the  lower  branch  of  the 
legislature.     Every  man  selected  to  go  before  the 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  163 

caucus  is  required  to  agree,  in  the  presence  of  wit- 
nesses, that  if  he  is  elected  to  office  he  will  act  en- 
tirely as  the  ward  organization  directs. 

The  filing  of  caucus  nomination  papers  is  every 
year  the  occasion  of  some  absurd,  disgraceful  ex- 
hibition. A  heeler  gets  into  the  party  office  by 
a  window,  or  down  through  a  skylight,  in  order  to 
have  his  faction's  list  of  nominees  placed  first  on 
the  caucus  ticket.  Or  the  announcement  of  the 
time  for  filing  nominations,  of  which  public  adver- 
tisement is  required,  is  placed  in  an  obscure  part 
of  the  first  edition  of  the  afternoon  papers,  and 
those  in  possession  of  the  secret  have  their  nomina- 
tions filed  while  their  opponents  are  still  waiting 
for  the  news. 

I  As  a  rule,  local  contests  in  the  North  and  West 
Ends  never  extend  beyond  the  caucus,  except  in  a 
merely  perfunctory  way.  The  West  End  is  so 
boss  ridden  that  there  is  rarely  any  public  cam- 
paign at  all.  The  democracy  does  not  meet  and 
reason  together  for  the  common  good.  Important 
elections  take  place  in  this  district  without  a  single 
meeting  for  a  discussion  of  the  issues  involved. 
This  seems  to  represent  the  extreme  step  in  setting 
aside  our  American  precedents,  j  The  West  End 
doctrine  is  that  platform  discussion  is  "  hot  air  ;  " 
that  the  newspapers  are  all  "  fixed  "  by  corpora- 


164  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

tions';  and  that  the  welfare  of  city  and  nation  is 
neither  here  nor  there  to  Ward  8.  This  does  not 
mean  that  there  is  nothing  to  an  election  but  the 
leader's  fiat.  On  the  contrary,  the  campaign  in  the 
shape  of  ''  personal  work  "  is  carried  to  the  bench 
and  counter,  the  threshold  and  fireside,  the  saloon 
bar  and  the  street  corner,  —  wherever  the  voter  is 
found.  Exhaustive  organization,  not  talk,  is  the 
West  End  style  of  canvass.  In  either  district 
freedom  of  speech  is  sometimes  subject  to  actual 
abridgment  in  the  case  of  bolters.  In  the  West 
End  a  dissenting  faction  had  made  all  arrange- 
ments to  hold  a  meeting  in  the  wardroom,  but 
arrived  to  find  the  lights  out  and  the  door  securely 
locked.  In  the  North  End  there  was  to  be,  under 
insurgent  leadership,  a  special  Jewish  rally  in  a 
new  synagogue  which  was  practically  completed. 
Influence  was  brought  to  bear  upon  the  contractor 
to  post  a  notice  that  the  building  was  unsafe. 

At  rallies,  when  there  is  a  local  contest,  much 
time  and  attention  is  given  to  specific  instructions 
as  to  the  proper  candidates  to  be  voted  for  under 
each  heading  on  the  baUot,  and  careful  warnings 
are  given  as  to  the  proper  sources  of  light,  provided 
light  is  necessary.  Indeed,  a  ward  raUy  at  the 
North  End  toward  the  close  of  the  evening  assumes 
the  character  of   a  district  school,  in  which  the 


TRAFFIC  IN   CITIZENSHIP  165 

pupils  of  different  grades  are  given  their  different 
appropriate  lessons  by  the  chief  political  pedagogue, 
to  be  learned  by  caucus  day. 

It  is  said  that  a  peculiar  sort  of  "  crib "  has 
been  devised  by  which  some  of  these  pupils  occa- 
sionally escape  the  mental  burden  of  their  lesson. 
For  a  certain  office  there  are  a  number  of  inde- 
pendent candidates,  whose  fitness  for  the  nomina- 
tion consists  in  the  fact  that  their  names  are 
confusingly  like  those  of  the  "  regulars."  A  tooth 
comb  is  taken  and  the  teeth  removed,  except  those 
which  are  spaced  so  as  to  point  to  the  names  of  the 
"regular"  candidates  on  the  caucus  ballot,  when 
the  end  of  the  comb  is  pointed  at  the  name  of  the 
office  to  be  filled ;  or  better  still,  a  piece  of  card- 
board has  oblong  holes  cut  in  it,  which,  when  fitted 
over  the  list  of  nominees,  leaves  only  the  approved 
names  in  sight.  Thus  equipped  the  recent  Italian 
immigrant  may  be  enabled  to  vote  "  right "  with 
an  accuracy  of  which  enlightened  voters  —  whose 
eyes  might  wander — would  be  quite  incapable. 
At  this  point  political  ingenuity  comes  within  a 
hair's  breadth  of  making  the  machine  automatic. 

At  the  caucus  itself  instruction  is  still  liberally 
and  insistently  dispensed ;  though  then,  of  course, 
false  doctrine  is  likely  to  be  even  more  loudly  pro- 
claimed.    In  this  case  there  is  everything  in  the 


166  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

voter's  knowing  tlie  particular  source  from  which 
the  instruction  comes.  The  officers  of  the  caucus 
are  on  the  alert  for  opportunities.  There  is  a 
provision  by  which  a  voter  who  has  any  physical 
defect  of  hand  or  eye  may  seek  help  of  the  offi- 
cers of  the  caucus.  Sometimes  a  halting  intellect 
is  symbolically  bodied  forth  in  a  bandaged  eye 
or  an  arm  in  a  sling.  Then  it  is  important  to 
have  the  right  man  ready  to  "  assist."  Some- 
times caucus  officers  exercise  terrorism  over  cer- 
tain voters  by  assisting  them  against  their  will, 
particularly  those  who  are  under  the  influence  of 
liquor.  These  actions,  however,  are  very  closely 
watched  by  the  opposing  forces  at  the  rail,  who 
loudly  protest  to  the  captain  or  heutenant  of  the 
police.  Such  an  official  is  always  present  at  this 
up-to-date  folkmote,  clothed  with  summary  author- 
ity, and  supported  by  from  twenty  to  fifty  rounds- 
men and  two  or  three  plain-clothes  detectives. 

The  faction  leaders  outside  the  rail  give  close 
vigilance  to  watching  the  line  of  voters  as  they 
pass  in  to  the  polling  booths.  When  the  "  fight " 
is  a  warm  one,  a  large  number  of  votes  are 
challenged.  The  ground  of  most  of  the  chal- 
lenges is  false  registration,  —  covering  the  case  of 
"  carpet-baggers,"  whom  every  one  knows  to  be 
non-residents,  but  whose  failure    to  comply  with 


TRAFFIC  IN   CITIZENSHIP  167 

the  letter  of  the  law  may  be  difficult  to  prove. 
Quite  often  Republicans  are  found  voting  in  Demo- 
cratic caucuses.  Occasionally  a  man  is  challenged 
as  a  repeater  ;  that  is,  as  voting  on  the  name  of  an- 
other man,  who  may  be  late,  absent,  ill,  in  jail,  or 
dead. 

It  is  perhaps  needless  to  say  that  the  object  of 
these  challenges  is  not  a  disinterested  desire  to  stop 
such  corrupt  practices.  If  the  vote  proves  to  be  a 
close  one,  the  challenges  are  followed  up.  As  the 
caucus  has  now  practically  the  same  legal  sanctions 
as  an  election,  there  are  severe  penalties  involved. 
Usually,  however,  nothing  is  heard  of  them  after- 
wards, and  many  people  in  the  district  come  to  look 
upon  false  registration,  and  even  repeating,  as  part 
of  the  safe  and  profitable  risk  of  the  game  of 
politics.  After  one  caucus,  in  which  the  opposition 
made  specially  strenuous  protests  and  entered  many 
challenges,  one  of  the  local  heelers  was  heard  to 
remark,  "  WeU,  we  ran  in  a  couple  hundred  of 
them,  anyway."  A  voter  is  sometimes  challenged 
simply  in  order  that  the  faction  leaders  may  know 
exactly  what  the  nature  of  his  vote  is.  It  was  the 
intention,  under  the  secret-ballot  system,  to  make 
it  impossible  for  the  politician  to  keep  account  of 
stock  and  know  about  the  actual  delivery  of  goods. 
This  worthy  intention  is  easily  defeated.     A  voter 


168  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

is  challenged  just  as  lie  is  about  to  deposit  his  bal- 
lot. It  is  then  necessary  for  him  to  identify  his 
ballot  by  writing  his  name  on  the  back  of  it.  Con- 
federates of  the  faction  leaders,  when  the  count 
comes,  can  discover  whether  the  challenged  voter 
has  voted  "right."  This  method  is  operated  so 
effectually,  and  the  machine  so  severely  punishes 
irregularity  thus  discovered,  that  the  security  of  the 
secret  ballot  is  to  a  considerable  degree  lost. 

It  is  only  when  a  defeated  faction  refuses  to 
abide  by  the  result  of  the  caucus  that  the  full 
excitement  of  the  campaign  is  carried  beyond  the 
primary  and  into  the  final  election.  Aside  from 
such  fraternal  strife,  there  remains  in  general  city 
elections  the  stimulus  of  supplying  a  large  local 
vote  for  the  party  candidates ;  and  as  both  wards 
carry  an  enormous  list  of  city  appointees,  this  in- 
citement is  always  sufficient  to  keep  the  machine 
actively  at  work  up  to  election  time. 

The  power  of  such  political  organization  is  in 
that  it  is  incessantly  at  work.  It  hardly  has  a 
season  in  which  it  is  more  busy  than  at  other  times. 
It  has  no  vacations.  Election  won  or  lost,  the 
organization  comes  at  once  to  the  steady,  all  the 
year  round  task  of  keeping  the  forces  together  and, 
as  far  as  possible,  satisfied.  After  a  victory  each 
ward   tries   to   secure   the   greatest  share  of   the 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  169 

spoils,  and  Wards  6  and  8  are  noted  for  getting 
more  than  their  share.  In  case  of  defeat  various 
shifts  are  made  to  keep  as  many  men  as  possible 
in  office.  There  is  at  least  a  slight  hold  on  power 
in  the  Board  of  Aldermen,  or  there  are  members 
of  the  legislature  who  can  secure  jobs  from  cor- 
porations. Many  go  back  to  their  old  trades. 
Loosely  attached  ones  move  away,  remaining  avail- 
able for  "  residence  "  purposes  when  needed.  In 
general,  the  same  interlacing  of  relationship  and 
association  which  lifts  the  fortunate  into  city 
positions  serves  to  break  their  fall  in  the  event 
of  party  failure.  In  any  case,  everything  is  done 
to  stimulate  the  voters  to  watch  and  work  for 
the  future.  It  is  a  strange  fact  that  party  loyalty 
seems  to  rise  higher  during  the  lean  years  than  dur- 
ing the  fat  years.  Bolters  choose  the  times  when 
the  party  is  in  power  as  the  favorable  time  for  their 
insurrections ;  because,  while  many  are  provided 
for,  more  are  not,  and  there  are  infinite  possibili- 
ties for  jealousies  and  bickering.  As  a  City  Hall 
official  expressed  it,  "  Every  time  I  give  a  job  I 
make  one  friend  and  ten  enemies." 

The  brother  and  lieutenant  of  the  Ward  8  boss, 
when  in  the  legislature,  dismissed  some  very  im- 
portant measure  limiting  the  power  of  a  certain 
corporation  by  saying  that  he  was  too  busy  attend- 


170  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

ing  to  securing  work  for  the  unemployed  to  pay 
attention  to  such  matters.  The  task  of  placing  a 
large  number  of  men  in  city  work  is  indeed  a  very 
engrossing  and  exasperating  one.  There  lies  in 
waiting  the  disappointment  of  seeing  them  all  dis- 
charged. In  Ward  6,  at  a  recent  political  over- 
turn, 212  men  were  removed.  No  wonder  that  the 
boss  in  the  ward  campaign  that  followed  the  mayor- 
alty election,  with  a  lenient  and  fostering  air,  stated 
that  if  there  were  any  men  still  in  the  city  employ 
who  feared  that  they  might  lose  their  jobs  by  com- 
ing to  the  caucus,  such  men  would  be  excused  from 
coming.  This  announcement  was  the  accompani- 
ment of  whispered  rumors  that  a  child  had  starved 
to  death,  and  a  man  had  committed  suicide.  It  can 
easily  be  understood,  therefore,  that  there  is  a  cer- 
tain solemn  hush  about  the  last  campaign  meeting 
before  a  city  election,  when  the  turn  of  events 
affects  so  deeply  the  well-being  of  so  many  of  the 
families  of  the  ward. 

Civil  service  regulations  offer  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  patronage,  but  the  law  is  to  some  extent 
evaded.  A  boss  secures  the  discharge  of  a  large 
number  of  men  "  for  the  good  of  the  service  "  or 
"  for  lack  of  work."  After  a  little  time  he  begins 
to  draw  liberally  upon  the  civil  service  list,  which 
he  has  been  careful  to  have  filled  up  in  the  mean 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  171 

time  by  his  own  men.  Sometimes  it  is  possible  to 
make  a  new  classification  of  labor,  to  tiave  men 
enter  their  names  under  this  new  head,  and  then 
to  have  a  call  sent  from  the  city  departments  for 
workmen  of  the  new  description.  It  has  been 
asserted  that  on  one  occasion  certain  politicians  in 
the  West  End  surreptitiously  secured  the  civil 
service  examination  papers  in  order  to  make  sure 
of  landing  their  men.  The  story  goes  that  one 
half  of  the  questions  were  changed,  with  the  result 
that  all  the  West  End  candidates  made  a  mark  of 
exactly  fifty  per  cent.  There  is  immunity  from 
these  embarrassments  in  the  placing  of  laborers 
with  corporations  that  have  close  relations  with  the 
municipal  government.  This  is  more  and  more  an 
integral  part  of  the  machine  scheme.  Contractors 
and  tradesmen  who  deal  with  the  city  departments 
are  also  confidently  looked  to  by  political  leaders 
as  sources  of  employment. 

As  matters  of  personal  interest,  of  course  only 
the  larger  stakes  in  the  game  concern  the  political 
chief  and  his  aides-de-camp.  Aside  from  securing 
a  few  well-paid  appointive  posts  at  City  Hall,  each 
ward  expects  that  the  teaming,  street  construction 
and  other  large  city  work  carried  on  within  its 
limits  shall  be  done  by  some  of  its  citizen  con- 
tractors.    These  contracting  firms  are  usually  of 


172  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

an  improvised  sort,  and  are  often  only  a  name 
to  cover  up  the  operations  of  two  or  three  politi- 
cians. Large  profits  are  made  in  these  ways. 
Matters  are  so  arranged  that  when  the  administra- 
tion changes,  the  good-will  and  fixtures  are  trans- 
ferred to  a  firm  ostensibly  connected  with  the 
party  newly  in  power,  but  the  ownership  probably 
remains  the  same. 

It  is  in  connection  with  land  transactions  that 
the  professional  politician  finds  his  special  financial 
opportunity.  Some  of  these  schemes  come  near  to 
the  line  of  legitimate  business.  For  instance,  at 
the  time  when  the  new  bridge  to  Charlestown  was 
to  be  erected,  there  was  intense  rivalry  betv/een  two 
groups  of  local  politicians  as  to  which  should  de- 
termine the  precise  location  of  the  bridge.  One 
group  had  options  on  one  row  of  buildings,  the 
other  on  a  different  row.  The  successful  group 
first  secured  a  large  amount  of  money  for  damages 
to  their  buildings,  and  then  profited  by  the  rise 
in  value  of  their  property  after  the  improvements 
were  completed.  Such  money-making  exploits  on 
the  basis  of  inside  knowledge  of  facts,  and  even 
on  the  basis  of  facts  actually  created  for  the  pur- 
pose, are,  of  course,  the  commonplace  of  much  of 
the  large  business  enterprise  of  the  present  day. 

Without  that  degree  of  excuse  is  the  practice 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  173 

of  managing  the  purchase  of  real  estate  by  the  city 
at  a  price  greatly  in  excess  of  its  real  value,  the 
amount  in  excess  going  as  booty  to  the  chief  polit- 
ical agents  in  bringing  about  the  purchase.  At 
least  two  local  poHticians  have  frequently  been  en- 
gaged in  undertakings  of  this  kind.  "Land 
deals  "  are,  in  fact,  so  common  that  among  old 
hands  at  City  Hall  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  no 
purchase  of  land  by  the  city  can  be  made  without 
some  official  receiving  his  "  dot." 

The  relation  between  politics  and  local  trade  of 
every  sort  is  close.  Shopkeepers  find  that  it  is 
very  necessary  to  be  on  friendly  terms  with  the 
machine.  Their  trade  may  diminish  otherwise. 
A  provision  dealer  in  the  West  End  was  placed 
under  a  boycott  not  long  ago  because  he  had  a 
pohtical  bolter  engaged  in  cutting  meat  for  him, 
but  the  provision  dealer  pluckily  endured  the  tem- 
porary stress.  The  liquor  trade  is  everywhere 
just  on  the  edge  of  politics.  But  as  the  licenses 
are  given  by  a  State  board,  over  which  ward  politi- 
cians can  have  but  little  influence,  the  relation  of 
the  politician  to  the  saloon-keeper  is  simply  that 
of  two  men  who  can  give  each  other  aid  in  for- 
warding their  different  projects.  In  several  forms 
of  Jewish  trade  and  enterprise,  the  politician  finds 
financial  opportunities.     The  junk  dealer  seeks  a 


''174  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

license.  Theoretically  it  costs  five  dollars ;  in 
practice  it  costs  fifty.  The  jerry-builder  seeks  a 
license  to  make  over  an  old  building  and  crowd 
new  additions  upon  the  land.  The  pohtician  can 
help  him,  for  a  consideration.  After  crowding  the 
building  over  every  possible  inch  of  land,  he  wishes 
to  gain  more  space  by  adding  bay  windows  that  jut 
out  over  the  public  street.  In  many  cases  the 
narrow  streets  in  the  West  End,  newly  built  up  by 
Jewish  landlords,  have  bay  windows  three  feet  deep 
reaching  out  on  both  sides,  and  almost  continuous 
along  the  whole  length  of  the  street.  A  certain 
former  Republican  alderman,  now  holding  a  more 
important  position,  is  said  to  have  pocketed  twenty- 
five  dollars  for  each  of  these  obstructions.  As 
a  result,  among  some  of  his  companions  he  is 
called  "  Bay  Window,"  by  way  of  jolly  nickname. 
It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  the  poli- 
tician never  serves  his  constituency  for  naught. 
He  has  an  endless  number  of  thankless  tasks  laid 
upon  him.  He  must  see  that  this  poor  family's 
rent  is  paid ;  he  must  secure  legal  assistance  for 
that  oppressed  immigrant ;  he  has  to  arbitrate 
local  disputes ;  he  must  secure  for  the  sick  admis- 
sion to  the  hospital ;  he  is  pressed  to  use  his  best 
endeavors  to  get  ambitious  but  incapable  girls  into 
the  high  or  normal  school ;  he  must  find  places  for 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  175 

them  as  stenographers  or  teachers  when  they  have 
finished  their  education ;  he  must  put  the  poor, 
worthy  and  unworthy  alike,  in  the  way  of  receiving 
help  from  church  or  municipal  charities ;  he  is 
besieged  for  opportunities  of  work  by  widows 
and  helpless  people.  He  makes  it  his  business 
to  befriend  the  culprit  before  the  law,  advancing 
bail,  securing  witnesses,  getting  the  complaint 
smoothed  down,  the  penalty  eased.  As  a  philan- 
thropist, under  enlightened  standards  he  could 
hardly  be  allowed  to  pass ;  still,  he  is  inclined  to 
believe  himself  one,  and  many  of  his  constituents 
share  the  opinion  with  him.  He  is  certainly  human 
in  the  variety,  the  universality,  of  his  interests  and 
service.  Up  to  a  certain  point,  also,  the  boss  must 
necessarily  be  a  man  of  character.  As  seen  in 
these  districts,  the  political  chiefs,  whatever  may 
be  said  about  their  public  morality,  answer  to  the 
severest  tests  that  private  domestic  rectitude  may 
place  upon  them. 

Ward  politics  is  largely  an  affair  of  young  men. 
It  brings  them  into  some  sort  of  equal  association 
with  persons  of  influence  and  power.  Ambitious 
youths,  with  no  one  to  help  them  to  a  professional 
or  commercial  career,  and  having  prejudices  to 
meet  in  those  lines  against  their  race  and  reli- 
gion, find  an  open,  inviting  opportunity  in  politics. 


176  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

Middle-aged  men  do  not  care  for  its  excitements, 
and  cannot  so  well  afford  its  risks.  It  is  a  difficult 
task  to  get  the  older  men  to  come  to  the  caucus  and 
wait  for  hours  in  line.  Still,  the  family  claim  is 
so  strong  that  cases  are  not  uncommon  in  which 
a  successful  young  politician,  holding  an  important 
position  at  City  Hall,  will  find  a  place  for  his 
father  as  laborer  in  one  of  the  city  departments. 

The  intricacies  of  family  relationship  have  so 
much  to  do  with  holding  the  party  together  that 
the  sentiments  of  women  have  telling  force.  Two 
minor  politicians  in  the  North  End  have  recently 
found  themselves  discredited  because  they  were 
saloon-keepers  and  non-churchgoers.  The  influ- 
ence which  led  to  their  undoing  came  chiefly  from 
what  was  said  here  and  there  over  the  table  at  home. 
Either  fault  by  itself  might  have  been  condoned, 
but  the  double  delinquency  could  not  be  endured. 
No  man  need  hope  for  votes  from  these  constitu- 
encies who  is  known  to  be  discourteous  to  women 
or  inconsiderate  of  children. 

Politics,  far  more  than  any  other  interest,  gives 
dignity  to  the  larger  social  hfe  in  these  wards. 
The  man  who  succeeds  in  business  moves  away  into 
pleasanter  surroundings ;  the  man  who  succeeds  in 
politics  must,  in  effect  at  least,  remain.  Politics 
lifts  and  localizes  at  the  same  time.     It  is,  there- 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  177 

fore,  on  tlie  political,  not  on  the  economic  or  edu- 
cational scale,  that  social  dignities  are  registered. 
Politics  forms  a  titled  aristocracy.  No  consider- 
able social  occasion  is  complete  which  is  not  illus- 
trated by  some  of  these  men  of  rank. 

The  political  affairs  of  a  ward  are  nominally  in 
the  hands  of  a  ward  committee  for  each  party,  but 
aside  from  the  difficulty  of  finding  among  the 
voters  of  the  ward  twelve  or  fifteen  men  of  suffi- 
cient special  capacity  and  experience  to  serve  on 
such  a  committee,  the  situation  is  so  complicated, 
requires  such  varied,  flexible  and  instant  action, 
both  for  the  regulation  of  internal  affairs  and  for 
playing  the  local  forces  in  the  large  outer  field  of 
a  mayoralty  campaign,  that  the  single  powerful 
leader  is  a  natural  and  inevitable  development. 
Even  the  reformer,  if  he  reaches  his  conclusions 
on  the  basis  of  the  facts  as  they  are,  is  compelled 
to  admit  that  the  conditions  require  some  sort  of 
boss.  The  boss,  too,  must  be  near  his  people,  and, 
in  essential  respects,  like  them.  "  He  's  our  kind" 
is  the  keynote  of  loyalty  to  political  leadership; 
and  this,  indeed,  is  usually  as  true,  though  the 
sentiment  may  be  more  subtly  expressed,  among 
the  educated  classes  as  among  the  working  classes. 

The  two  leaders  in  Ward  6  and  Ward  8  have, 
until  about  a  year  ago,  been  engaged  in  a  relent- 


178  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

less  duel  with  each  other.  The  trouble  began  in  a 
nominating  convention.  Charging  that  the  Ward 
6  man  did  not  trade  votes  as  he  agreed  to  do,  the 
Ward  8  man  swore  that  he  would  let  his  right  arm 
wither  before  he  would  ever  take  the  hand  of  his 
professional  brother.  The  two  wards,  being  close 
neighbors,  are  in  the  same  aldermanic  and  sena- 
torial districts.  Each  boss  strove  to  organize  sup- 
port in  his  rival's  ward  for  alderman  and  senator, 
and  every  weapon  in  the  arsenal  of  political  chi- 
canery was  put  in  commission.  Each  proceeded 
to  organize  a  band  of  insurgents  in  the  territory  of 
the  other.  Each  played  defensive  tactics  against 
the  other  by  bringing  hordes  of  "  carpet-baggers  " 
into  his  ward.  After  such  strokes  had  been  dealt 
back  and  forth  during  successive  campaigns,  the 
Ward  8  leader  was  able  to  institute  a  deadly  attack 
from  the  rear.  This  was  done  by  means  of  an  or- 
ganized, persistent  policy  of  treachery  to  his  party, 
through  which  he  continued  to  retain  a  large  share 
of  his  power  after  the  opposition  party  had  come 
into  control  of  the  city  government.  By  placing  at 
work  men  belonging  to  his  opponent's  ward  at  a 
time  when  all  of  his  opponent's  most  loyal  followers 
were  being  discharged,  he  effectually  checkmated 
the  enemy.  The  two  bosses  have  now  estabhshed 
a  modus  vivendi^  to  the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  city 


TRAFFIC  m  CITIZENSHIP  179 

as  a  whole.  The  capitulating  Ward  6  man,  how- 
ever, is  now  looked  at  somewhat  askance  by  his 
"  regular  "  colleagues  in  other  parts  of  the  city. 

These  two  men,  strongly  contrasted  in  personal 
traits  and  in  some  of  their  methods,  yet  are  alike 
in  representing  the  ward  boss  as  no  other  political 
leaders  in  the  city  now  do.  There  are  other  lead- 
ers as  powerful  or  more  so,  but  this  is  because 
they  have  gained  large  influence  in  the  public  coun- 
cils of  the  party  or  the  municipality.  There  are 
no  others  who  give  such  unremitting  personal 
attention  to  the  perplexing  maze  of  petty  affairs 
which  makes  up  the  internal  life  of  their  wards. 
In  this  respect  the  Ward  8  leader  clearly  out- 
strips the  Ward  6  leader  —  so  as  to  be  known 
throughout  the  city  as  the  man  who,  against  ever- 
increasing  obstacles,  holds  the  vote  of  his  ward 
absolutely  in  hand.  His  galvanic  mastery  of  his 
followers  is,  in  fact,  so  absolute  that  he  can  juggle 
with  the  votes  of  fifteen  hundred  men,  throwing 
them,  at  the  same  time,  for  the  regular  candidate 
for  mayor  and  for  an  unknown  insurgent  candi- 
date for  street  commissioner. 

Both  bosses  exercise  that  combination  of  auto- 
cracy and  benignity,  frankness  and  mystery,  which 
goes  with  paternal  sway.  Both  know  how  to  bring 
out  and  give  scope  for  capacity  in  the  young  be- 


180  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

fore  it  knows  itself.  Both  know  how  to  check  and 
mar  a  career  that  is  leading  toward  ends  alien  to 
their  own.  Both  have  their  power  balanced  with 
an  overwhelming  load  of  responsibility.  The  anxi- 
eties brought  about  by  the  general  pressure  for 
place,  the  constant  unrest  and  outright  treachery 
of  their  following,  the  personal  clashing  of  rival 
suppliants,  —  all  these,  vrhile  outside  foes  may 
be  clamoring,  constitute  a  body  of  corroding  care 
such  as  only  the  strongest  men  could  endure.  The 
Ward  6  leader,  a  man  of  nervous,  impetuous  type, 
some  years  ago  found  that  the  strain  of  living  in 
the  thick  of  all  this  became  too  great,  and  removed 
with  his  family  twenty  miles  out  into  the  country. 
Here,  then,  in  the  land  of  popular  representative 
government,  is  the  curious  anomaly  of  a  political 
leader  of  a  large  constituency,  elected  to  every  sort 
of  office  by  them,  who  has  for  years  made  his  home 
a  score  of  miles  away,  under  conditions  in  every 
respect  different  from  their  own.  Every  one  knows 
the  fact,  but  it  is  spoken  of  under  the  breath,  ex- 
cept when  an  insurgent  movement  breaks  out.  It 
would  be  impossible  for  him  to  retain  his  hold  but 
for  the  large  family  connection  which  the  boss 
enjoys.  One  of  the  humors  of  a  recent  revolution- 
ary uprising  in  the  ward  was  a  burlesque  pro- 
gramme of  a  play,  in  which  the  characters  were 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  181 

King  Jolin  and  a  long  list  of  princes  of  the  blood 
royal. 

This  leader  comes  of  the  well-to-do  Irish,  most 
of  whom  have  given  up  all  connection  with  the 
North  End.  His  family  for  many  years  kept  an 
old-country  grocery,  including  "bottled  goods." 
He  has  had  a  fair  education  in  the  Boston  schools. 
His  executive  force  became  apparent  in  connection 
with  schoolboy  interests  during  his  course  in  the 
English  High  School.  He  was  in  politics  as  soon 
as  he  became  a  voter.  His  ascent  was  exceedingly 
rapid.  He  leaped  from  the  Common  Council  to 
the  State  Senate,  and  thence  leaped  again  to  Con- 
gress, being  almost  the  youngest  member  during 
his  first  session.  He  was  elected  to  Congress  by 
the  odd  rallying  cry,  "  The  people  believe  in  rota- 
tion," displacing  a  man  who  had  represented  the 
district  with  special  ability  and  distinction.  The 
time  came,  however,  when  his  rallying  cry  was  due 
to  be  used  against  him.  Since  being,  in  turn,  ro- 
tated out,  he  has  become  the  editor  of  a  weekly 
paper  combining  religion  with  its  politics,  which 
was  formerly  the  possession  of  the  only  general 
municipal  boss  the  city  of  Boston  has  yet  known. 

"The  young  Napoleon  of  the  North  End"  is 
not  inaptly  named.  He  is  short,  dark,  sharp 
featured,  with  set  lips.     He  has  quick  movements 


182  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

and  an  anxious  look.  His  home  life  is  said  to  be 
very  attractive,  and  he  is  very  hospitable  to  his 
city  friends  at  his  country  establishment.  His 
opponents  accuse  him  of  obviously  making  use  of 
the  church  to  further  his  ends ;  his  friends  say 
that  he  has  rendered  the  church  very  important 
aid.  Certain  it  is  that  he  is  a  loyal  church- 
man, and  that  there  is  nothing  in  his  private  hfe 
to  belie  his  profession.  For  keeping  up  his  influ- 
ence in  the  ward,  he  is  noted  among  the  politicians 
of  the  city  for  vast  and  intense  activity,  for  the 
acute  and  subtle  manipulation  of  personal  and 
social  interests,  and  for  successful  dickering  with 
other  political  leaders  of  his  own  party.  He  has 
apparently  had  a  comfortable  income,  in  and  out 
of  office  ;  but  there  are  no  signs  of  his  having  any 
considerable  property.  Though  there  is  always 
more  or  less  unrest  under  his  leadership,  the  people 
of  the  ward  are  proud  of  his  personal  success, 
even  when  not  held  to  him  by  the  bond  of  benefits 
received.  He  has  shown  an  aggressive  interest  in 
several  very  important  movements  at  the  North 
End  for  the  bettering  of  the  way  of  life  among 
the  people.  The  North  End  Park,  a  playground 
and  swimming  beach,  is  his  "monument."  He 
does  not  fail  to  make  frequent  public  reference  to 
his  connection  with  these  enterprises.      In  general, 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  183 

he  follows  the  type  in  making  the  central  figure  at 
public  meetings,  at  charitable  bazaars  and  in  the 
columns  of  the  papers.  His  grand,  ambition  is 
to  attain  the  dignity  of  "  His  Honor,  the  Mayor." 

The  king  of  Ward  8  utterly  scorns  all  such 
vanities.  Caring  nothing  for  glory,  living  after 
the  homeliest  fashion  among  his  own  people,  hav- 
ing no  family,  and  only  the  semblance  of  other 
business,  he  rivets  his  attention  upon  his  craft  of 
ward  boss.  He  is  of  the  poor  Irish,  and  there 
are  touches  of  the  cabin  life  of  his  ancestors  in  his 
plain,  homely  ways ;  on  the  other  hand,  his  name, 
a  very  unusual  one,  is  that  of  an  ancient  Irish 
chieftain.  He  began  life  as  a  newsboy,  but  even 
then  he  used  to  take  his  recreation  by  going  to  the 
State  House  to  listen  to  the  legislative  debates. 
He  came  to  the  front  just  as  some  of  the  last  of 
the  well-to-do  Irish  leaders  were  passing  from  the 
West  End  to  pleasanter  quarters. 

He  has  no  tendencies  toward  any  sort  of  dis- 
sipation, abstaining  from  liquor,  and  even  from 
tobacco.  He  is  said  to  have  given  as  a  reason  for 
his  abstinent  life  a  promise  long  ago  made  to  his 
mother.  He  is  fondly  attached  to  his  brother, 
who  wanders  somewhat  from  his  own  chosen  ways. 
He  is  punctiliously  devout ;  and  though  availing 
himself  fully  of   church  esprit  de   corps  for  his 


184  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

purposes,  yet  as  a  worshiper  lie  seeks  an  obscure  cor- 
ner, not  tlie  foremost  seats.  He  always  distrusts 
the  stranger,  meaning  by  the  stranger  any  one  not 
of  his  own  tried  and  intimate  followers.  It  is  this 
narrow,  intense  form  of  allegiance  which  he  seeks 
and  creates  that  makes  him  a  sort  of  clan  chief, 
hated  and  feared  almost  as  much  by  the  regular 
forces  of  his  allies  as  by  the  enemy,  but  supported 
by  the  unquestioning  loyalty  of  clansmen  to  their 
chief.  The  North  End  is  split  up  into  many  gangs, 
and  there  a  revolt  is  always  imminent.  The  West 
End  boss  sees  to  it  that  there  is  but  one  gang,  the 
membership  of  his  ward  political  club.  The  annual 
incomes  of  municipal  employees  in  the  membership 
of  this  organization  aggregate  not  less  than  $80,- 
000  or  190,000.  Under  the  peculiar  West  End 
system  for  being  on  both  sides  of  the  fence  politi- 
cally, none  of  its  members  walk  the  streets  all 
night  in  agonized  suspense  before  an  election,  as 
city  employees  in  the  North  End  sometimes  do. 
These  facts  suggest  the  indissoluble  nature  of  the 
tie  which  holds  the  club  together.  The  boss  has 
his  "  real-estate  "  office  in  the  club,  and  the  mem- 
bers always  know  how  to  find  him. 

In  contrast  with  the  North  End  leader,  this  man 
is  stolid  and  unrefined.  He  looks  darkly  out  of 
eyeglasses  set  against  beetling  brows.     His  chief 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  185 

feature  is  his  lower  jaw,  which  is  broad,  square 
and  protruding  to  the  point  of  caricature.  He 
walks  with  a  dapper  step,  and  has  a  rapid,  choppy 
utterance,  which  gibe  oddly  with  his  large  head  and 
heavy  features.  He  speaks  but  seldom,  however. 
He  will  walk  for  blocks  or  drive  for  miles  with  one 
of  his  associates  beside  him  and  not  utter  a  sylla- 
ble. He  is  without  magnetism  ;  on  the  other  hand, 
he  is  not  arbitrary  or  domineering,  though  very 
severe  and  sudden  with  anything  savoring  of  dis- 
loyalty. His  personal  mastery  comes  of  his  sheer 
executive  force  and  strength  of  character.  He  is 
always  in  command  and  on  the  field  in  person. 
His  easy  seK-possession  reaches  its  height  at  the 
caucus :  the  wonderful  knowledge  which  he  has  of 
his  ward  is  every  moment  apparent;  even  jaw- 
breaking  Russian  names  he  calls  out  before  the 
clerks  have  time  to  consult  the  lists  ;  his  manipu- 
lation of  affairs  suggests  the  compositor  setting 
type  with  the  linotype  invention,  and  the  result  of 
it  all  is  as  surely  his  act.  He  is  connected  with 
no  social  organizations,  though  he  provides  in  his 
scheme  for  the  social  ambitions  of  others,  making 
use  of  such  motives  for  his  own  ends.  At  bot- 
tom he  is  the  financier.  Thrift  is  the  keynote  of 
his  life,  and  the  real  ambition  of  his  life  is  that 
of  the  money-getter.     He  saved  money  when  he 


186  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

was  a  city  laborer  at  $1.1  b  per  day.  He  has 
numerous  real-estate  holdings,  and  is  said  to  be 
worth  at  least  $100,000.  It  is  said  that  he  desires 
to  be  a  general  city  boss.  If  so,  he  seeks  not  the 
honors  but  the  emoluments. 

He  constantly  inculcates  thrift  upon  his  follow- 
ers. He  is  also  a  stern  advocate  of  a  temperate, 
seK-controlled  life.  He  gives  the  advantage  always, 
in  distributing  patronage,  to  men  of  sobriety  and 
steady  character.  Unmarried  and  accused  of  be- 
ing a  woman-hater,  he  constantly  urges  marriage 
upon  the  young  men  of  the  ward.  He  very  often 
gives  his  followers  substantial  aid  in  setting  up  a 
new  household,  and  it  is  part  of  his  code  of  laws 
for  the  ward  political  club  that  the  club  shall  give 
each  member  who  marries  a  generous  present. 
Such  a  pohcy  of  social  upbuilding  in  the  ward  does 
not  displace  the  usual  charities  of  the  boss,  but 
supplements  them  by  something  truly  sagacious 
and  far-reaching.  This  policy  reaches  its  height 
in  his  special  efforts  to  discover  promising  young 
men,  encourage  them  with  their  training,  launch 
them  upon  their  careers,  give  them  positions  of 
confidence  and  power  in  the  politics  of  the  ward, 
and  place  them  in  high-salaried  positions  in  the 
city  government,  or  establish  them  as  contractors, 
to  win  still  larger  sums  from  the  public. 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  187 

The  fanatical  fixedness  of  purpose  with  which 
this  man  insists  on  keeping  up  his  patronage  list 
and  his  representation  on  the  appropriation  and 
finance  committees  of  the  City  Council,  along  with 
his  peculiar  narrowness  of  range  and  inability  to 
trust  the  outsider,  constitute  him  probably  the  most 
serious  menace  to  good  government  that  now  exists 
in  the  city  of  Boston.  There  could  hardly  be  a 
more  curious  and  tragic  instance  of  a  man  holding 
absolutely  to  a  programme  of  right  living  in  his 
personal  life  and  standing  with  unwavering  loyalty 
by  his  friends  and  neighbors,  yet  commonly  sus- 
pected of  exercising  every  ingenuity  of  unscrupu- 
lousness  in  public  affairs,  and  even  treating  his  own 
political  party  with  barefaced  treachery.  He  con- 
trols a  sufficient  vote,  so  that  his  party  is  compelled 
to  bargain  for  his  support.  He  is  constantly  creat- 
ing deadlocks  in  party  conventions,  in  order  that 
the  vote  of  his  ward  may  count  for  several  times 
more  than  that  of  any  other.  The  opposing  party 
may  nearly  always  win  him  for  the  proper  price. 
There  are  times  when  this  adept  of  ethical  leger- 
demain sells  oat  to  both  parties,  and  by  the  help 
of  disaffected  elements  in  other  wards  actually 
delivers  the  goods. 

.  The  length  to  which  he  will  go  when  kept  back 
from  any  part  of  his  booty  was  shown  when  Josiah 


188  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Quincy  was  elected  mayor  a  few  years  ago.  Mr. 
Quincy  considered  his  demands  in  the  way  of  jobs, 
contracts  and  committee  appointments  altogether 
exorbitant,  and  refused  to  grant  them.  With  his 
ablest  lieutenant,  he  entered  the  State  legislature. 
Here  they  combined  with  the  opposite  party  to 
hinder  Mr.  Quincy's  projects  for  improving  the 
city  charter.  A  youthful  member  of  his  staff,  five- 
and-twenty,  a  miracle  of  brazenness,  was  placed, 
by  means  of  a  similarly  treacherous  alliance,  in  the 
chair  of  the  Common  Council.  Here  some  of  Mr. 
Quincy's  most  interesting  plans  for  enhancing  the 
health  and  happiness  of  the  masses  of  the  people 
were  hopelessly  blocked.  Leading  citizens,  regard- 
less of  dividing  lines,  sent  in  formal  petitions. 
The  whole  organized  force  of  the  working  people 
of  the  city,  chiefly  of  his  race,  sternly  demanded 
favorable  action  in  matters  so  vital  to  them.  Far- 
seeing  leaders  of  his  party  saw  here  a  signal  politi- 
cal point  of  vantage.  But  with  his  ward  in  solid 
files  behind  him,  and  holding  the  balance  of  power 
between  the  two  parties  in  the  Council,  he  stood 
immovable.  And  all  to  satisfy  the  desire  of  ven- 
geance in  the  heart  of  this  strange  political  Shylock, 
with  his  flinty  exaction  of  human  life  as  forfeit  for 
his  lost  ducats. 

He  has  in  his  ward  what  might  stand  as  "  monu- 


/ 


TRAFFIC  IN  CITIZENSHIP  189 

ments,"  —  the  Charlesbank  Gymnasium  and  the 
West  End  Branch  Library.  He  takes  little  inter- 
est in  these  enterprises ;  in  fact,  he  hardly  more 
than  acquiesced  in  their  establishment.  They  are 
now  falling  almost  entirely  into  the  hands  of  the 
Jews  ;  and  he,  though  contriving  to  hold  a  following 
among  that  race,  is  secretly  a  bitter  anti-Semite. 
In  part,  this  may  be  because  in  their  worst  traits 
he  resembles  them ;  "  it  is  not  the  colors,  but  the 
shades,  that  hate  each  other."  The  chief  reason  is 
not  a  subtle  one.  The  cement  of  clan  has  held 
together  the  foimdations  of  his  power.  Those 
foundations  are  being  sapped.  His  own  people  are 
being  displaced  and  scattered.  The  Jew  is  becom- 
ing omnipresent  about  him  —  as  a  spectre  warning 
the  Irish  boss  of  his  coming  downfall. 
\  His  supremacy  will  not  pass  away,  however,  be- 
fore he  has  drilled  leaders  of  the  Continental  immi- 
grants in  ways  that  are  subversive  of  the  American 
party  system,  not  to  speak  of  every  holy  tradition 
of  our  free  Republic.  The  evil  methods  will  remain; 
yet  not  because  of  him  or  any  of  his  like.  They 
exist  because,  to  immigrant  as  to  native  humanity, 
liberty  is  an  empty  thing  without  the  means  of  life. 
Machine  politics  provides  for  the  purchase  of  op- 
portunity by  the  payment  of  freedom,  jv 


CHAPTER  VII 

LAW   AND    ORDER 

The  North  End,  with  the  addition  of  the  North 
Union  Station  and  one  half  of  the  great  market 
region  near  Dock  Square,  go  to  make  up  Police 
Division  1.  From  the  first  of  December,  1900, 
to  the  first  of  December,  1901,  the  total  number  of 
arrests  in  this  division  for  all  offenses  was  4300 
males  and  575  females,  or  4875  altogether.  Of 
these,  3124  were  for  drunkenness,  306  for  assault 
of  one  kind  or  another,  232  for  simple  larceny,  37 
for  breaking  and  entering  dwellings  and  buildings, 
77  for  offences  against  chastity,  including  night- 
walking  and  the  keeping  of  a  noisy  and  disorderly 
house,  75  for  gaming  on  the  Lord's  Day  and  at 
other  times  and  being  present  where  gaming  was 
going  on,  3  for  murder  and  being  accessory  to  mur- 
der, and  6  for  manslaughter.  There  were  taken 
into  custody,  also,  203  suspicious  persons,  and  37 
vagrants  and  tramps  of  both  sexes  ;  87  disturbances 
were  suppressed ;  368  sick  and  injured  persons 
were  assisted,  and  32  dead  bodies  were  cared  for. 


LAW  AND  ORDER  191 

But  the  North  End  is  bordered  and  crossed  by- 
great  highways  of  travel  and  traffic  from  one  part 
of  the  city  to  another.  Therefore  the  figures  given 
represent  a  much  greater  population  than  that 
which  makes  its  home  in  the  North  End.  A  sepa- 
ration of  almost  any  one  of  these  groups  of  figures 
into  residents  and  non-residents  would  give  some 
surprising  residts.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  of  the 
entire  number  of  persons  arrested  in  this  division, 
fully  two  thirds  live  outside  the  limits  of  Boston. 
Naturally,  the  majority  of  these  non-residents  are 
arrested  for  drunkenness  or  immorality  of  some 
kind,  since  a  great  number  of  men,  and  some  wo- 
men, from  neighboring  cities  and  towns,  especially 
from  those  to  the  north  of  the  city,  resort  to  the 
North  End  for  purposes  of  wrong  doing. 

If  the  remaining  third  of  the  total  number  of 
arrests  is  separated  into  residents  of  the  North 
End  and  those  of  other  parts  of  the  city,  there  is 
another  surprising  result.  On  the  basis  of  a  care- 
ful estimate,  no  less  than  one  half  belong  outside 
the  North  End.  For  what  offenses  these  non- 
residents are  arrested  it  is  not  easy  to  say;  but 
probably  for  drunkenness  and  immorality  in  gen- 
eral, as  in  the  case  of  those  living  away  from  the 
city. 

Thus  it  appears  that  out  of  the  4875  persons 


192  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

arrested  in  the  division  during  the  twelve  months 
ending  December  1,  1901,  fully  3250  did  not 
belong  in  Boston  at  all,  and  only  about  825  resided 
at  the  North  End.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  this 
last-mentioned  number  comprises  all  who  were 
arrested  for  any  offense  whatever,  including  drunk- 
enness, in  a  population  of  nearly  30,000,  it  seems 
astonishingly  small.  According  to  the  police  show- 
ing, therefore,  the  North  End,  so  far  from  being 
exceptionally  lawless,  is,  on  the  contrary,  law-abid- 
ing to  a  degree  that  is  not  generally  supposed. 

Certain  measures  recently  taken  by  the  police  in 
the  North  End  have  had  an  important  bearing  on 
the  moral  welfare  of  this  section  of  the  city.  One 
of  these  was  the  closing  of  the  last  of  the  dance 
halls  in  the  spring  of  1900.  These  dance  halls  for 
a  number  of  years  before  they  were  shut  up  had 
been  the  sole  survivals  characteristic  of  that  period 
in  the  history  of  the  district  when  the  moral  tide 
was  at  its  very  lowest  ebb.  This  period,  which 
covered  fifteen  or  twenty  years  from  about  the 
middle  of  the  century  which  has  just  closed,  pre- 
sents a  picture  of  vicious  and  criminal  activity  that 
seems  incredible  to  one  familiar  with  the  North 
End  of  the  present  day.  "  Jilt  shops  "  —  those 
resorts  under  the  name  of  brothels  into  which  the 
sailor  was  enticed  merely  for  robbery  — were  strewn 


LAW  AND  ORDER  193 

thickly  along  Ann  Street,  now  North  Street.  There 
was  a  rat-pit  where  sporting  men  from  all  parts 
of  the  city  gathered,  and  where  fights  among  the 
spectators  were  of  the  most  frequent  occurrence. 
In  the  saloon  above  this  rat-pit  the  drinks  were 
served  by  girls  with  painted  cheeks  and  in  low- 
necked  dresses.  Entertainments  of  the  lewdest 
character  were  given  in  a  resort  off  North  Margin 
Street  and  elsewhere.  The  "  North  End  Block  " 
sheltered  a  swarming  population  of  thieves,  mur- 
derers, prostitutes  and  gamblers.  In  and  around 
Richmond  Street  was  gathered  a  mass  of  depraved 
Negroes  and  white  people  who  constituted  what 
was  known  as  the  "  Black  Sea."  A  stranger  ven- 
turing too  near  this  "  Black  Sea  "  was  very  likely 
to  be  engulfed  by  it,  only  to  be  tossed  back  later, 
robbed  and  stripped,  if  not  lifeless. 

The  dance  halls  had  come  into  existence  early  in 
the  century  ;  but  during  this  period  they  reached 
their  greatest  number  and  sank  to  their  lowest 
level.  Those  that  survived  the  period,  while  less 
and  less  open,  and  having  a  constantly  diminishing 
patronage,  remained  essentially  unchanged  to  the 
very  end.  Indeed  the  charge  on  which  they  were 
closed,  that  of  being  houses  of  ill-fame,  might  have 
been  brought  with  equal  propriety  against  them 
during  the  eighty  or  more  years  of  their  existence. 


194  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

Licenses  were  not  required,  since  admission  was 
free  and  no  liquor  sold.  The  women  were  paid  a 
small  fee  by  the  proprietors  in  addition  to  what 
they,  received  from  their  victims.  The  proprietors, 
who  bore  all  the  running  expenses,  including  the 
cost  of  the  music,  ostensibly  derived  their  profits 
from  the  sale  of  the  so-called  "  soft  "  or  non-alco- 
holic drinks.  No  private  rooms  were  connected 
directly  with  the  halls,  but  such  rooms  were  to 
be  found  on  the  floors  above  or  elsewhere  in  the 
immediate  neighborhood.  That  the  proprietors 
controlled  some  of  these  rooms  there  is  no  doubt. 

The  closing  of  the  dance  halls  really  registered 
the  moral  change  that  had  taken  place  at  the  North 
End  within  the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  The 
conditions  out  of  which  such  resorts  had  sprung, 
and  upon  which  their  continuance  really  depended, 
had  ceased  to  exist.  During  their  later  years  the 
dance  halls  had  been  more  and  more  of  an  ana- 
chronism. A  rapidly  decreasing  number  of  their 
women  hahituees,  and  a  smaller  and  smaller  per- 
centage of  their  patronage,  came  from  the  neigh- 
borhood. At  the  same  time,  local  public  sentiment 
was  growing  constantly  stronger  against  them,  as 
being  a  disgrace  and  a  menace. 
',  Thus  the  shutting  up  of  these  dance  halls  may 
be  said  to  mark  the  end  of  a  long  and  interesting 


LAW  AND  ORDER  195 

chapter  in  the  history  of  the  North  End,  —  a  chap- 
ter of  moral  decline  to  an  almost  inconceivably 
low  point,  and  of  at  least  partial  moral  recovery./ 
I  But  after  all,  it  is  the  narrative  of  what  has  taken 
place  on  the  soil  of  the  North  End  rather  than  in 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  people ;  for  the  changed 
moral  situation  has  been  due,  for  the  most  part,  to 
the  change  of  the  population.  The  moral  decadence 
began  with  the  incoming  of  the  vicious  and  crim- 
inal of  all  races  to  take  the  places  left  vacant  by 
the  departure  of  the  people  of  the  better  grades ; 
with  the  coming  of  the  self-respecting  and  indus- 
trious foreign  immigrant  began  the  moral  revival. 
In  other  words,  the  history  of  morals  at  the 
North  End  is  at  bottom  little  more  than  the  his- 
tory of  the  social  changes  that  have  taken  place 
here,  ; 

This  should  not  be  construed  as  meaning  that 
religious,  educational  and  coercive  agencies  have 
not  been  at  work  all  along,  or  have  been  ineffective. 
On  the  contrary,  they  have  done  much  to  keep  the 
North  End  from  sinking  to  any  lower  point  of 
moral  degradation,  and  to  aid  it  in  its  moral  recu- 
peration. The  work  of  the  churches  and  schools  is 
described  in  other  chapters  of  this  book ;  that  of 
the  police  only  is  in  point  here. 

Even  in  the  most  turbulent  days  of  the  North 


196  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

End,  police  activity  was  by  no  means  lacking. 
Haunts  of  vice  and  crime  were  broken  up,  law- 
breakers of  every  sort  were  driven  away  or  taken 
into  custody,  and  life  and  property  were  safeguarded. 
Li  1851  a  single  descent  of  the  police  on  tlie  no- 
torious Ann  Street  resulted  in  tlie  apprehension  of 
165  persons  guilty  of  every  sort  of  vice  and  crime. 
In  another  raid  on  the  same  street  a  few  years 
later,  51  street-walkers  and  inmates  of  houses  of 
ill-fame  were  taken  into  custody.  The  police 
annals  of  this  whole  period  are  fuU  of  tales  of 
sensational  encounters  with  burglars,  murderers 
and  other  desperate  characters.  As  late  as  1870 
or  later,  it  was  not  considered  safe  for  a  police 
officer  to  go  alone  through  certain  quarters.  Two 
officers  went  together  and  also  took  care  to  walk 
in  the  middle  of  the  street.  Nevertheless,  the 
police  force  in  this  part  of  the  city  was  far  too 
small  for  the  situation  that  it  tried  to  meet.  In 
1854,  when  the  Police  Department  of  the  City 
of  Boston  superseded  the  Boston  Watch  and  Po- 
lice, there  were  in  the  North  End  division  one 
captain,  two  lieutenants  and  thirty-three  patrol- 
men. To-day  the  force  in  practically  the  same 
division  numbers  ninety. 

A  recent  event  that  has  had  an  important  bear- 
ing on  the  moral  welfare  of  the  North  End  was  the 


LAW  AND  OBDEB  197 

loss  by  one  of  the  hotels  of  its  innholder's  license. 
An  innliolcler's  license,  it  will  be  remembered, 
carries  with  it  the  privilege  of  ser\4ng  liquors 
with  food  at  any  and  all  times  excepting  between 
the  hours  of  eleven  at  night  and  six  in  the  morn- 
ing. Unlike  the  dance  halls,  this  hotel,  as  it  was 
conducted,  had  never  been  rooted  in  local  con- 
ditions. With  others  of  the  same  general  class 
here  and  there  in  the  city,  it  owed  much  of  its 
business  to  the  breaking  up,  by  the  police,  of  the 
organized  houses  of  prostitution  throughout  Boston. 
Women  frequented  its  spacious  cafe  on  the  second 
floor,  where  they  were  known  to  be  present  and 
could  easily  be  found.  Men  and  women  also  came 
in  company.  Some  of  the  women  lived  in  the 
house,  hiring  their  rooms  by  the  week,  month,  or 
for  a  longer  time  ;  a  few  drifted  in  from  the  near-by 
dance  halls  before  these  were  closed.  The  waiters 
had  each  a  favorite  among  the  habituees,  for  whom 
they  solicited  custom,  and  shared  in  her  illicit 
earnings.  Practically  none  of  the  women  belonged 
in  the  North  End,  and  nearly  all  of  the  male 
patrons  were  non-residents. 

The  loss  of  its  innholder's  license  involved,  of 
course,  the  loss  of  those  pri\^leges  of  selling  liquor 
on  Sundays  and  holiday's,  upon  which  the  pros- 
perity of  such  an  hotel  depends.     As  a  result,  the 


198  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

character  of  the  house  was  completely  changed. 
The  cafe  was  made  into  a  general  dining-room, 
which,  together  with  a  similar  room  on  an  upper 
floor,  was  visited  by  a  constituency  of  a  distinctly 
Letter  grade  than  that  of  former  days.  The  hotel 
held  merely  an  ordinary  bar-room  license.  But 
this  change  proved  fatal  to  its  financial  interests ; 
within  a  few  months  it  has  been  obliged  to 
assign. 

Prostitution  was  not  wholly  banished  from  the 
North  End  by  these  two  events.  Finding  the  doors 
of  their  former  haunts  shut  against  them,  some 
of  the  women  established  themselves  in  near-by 
tenements  or  took  to  the  street.  Yet  they  did 
not  long  escape  police  vigilance,  and  were  taken 
into  custody  or  compelled  to  leave  the  district. 
At  the  present  time  there  are  no  disorderly  houses 
at  this  end  of  the  city  and  but  little  street-walking. 
That  prostitution  no  longer  exists  here  cannot,  of 
course,  be  affirmed.  There  is  an  imwritten  law 
of  the  local  hotels  which  points  unmistakably  to 
its  continued  presence.  This  law  is  that  a  woman 
who  comes  with  a  man,  presumably  her  husband, 
and  remains  over  night,  shall  not  be  allowed  to 
depart  alone  until  her  companion  has  been  seen 
and  gives  assurance  that  his  valuables  are  intact. 
Thus  the  unpleasant  consequences  of  a   reported 


LAW  AND   ORDER  199 

robbery  in  tlie  house  are  avoided.  But  prosti- 
tution no  longer  flaunts  itseK  openly.  On  tlie 
contrary,  whatever  of  it  still  remains  here  is  well 
under  cover  and  avoids  rather  than  seeks  attention. 
J  The  immigrants,  who  form  the  characteristic 
resident  population  of  the  North  End,  have  brought 
certain  evil  ways  of  their  own ;  they  are  also  in- 
evitably affected  by  the  moral  contagion  in  their 
surroundings.  The  Italian  men,  especially  those 
of  the  so-called  lower  classes,  are  as  a  rule  very 
lax  morally,  and  the  younger  Jewish  men  are  be- 
coming so  more  and  more.  Dispensary  doctors 
are  able  to  give  evidence  of  the  serious  inroads  of 
sexual  immorality  among  their  Italian  male  pa- 
tients, and  to  a  less  extent  among  their  Jewish 
ones.  Several  Italians  who  are  unmarried  or  with- 
out their  wives  may  live  with  a  common  mistress, 
ostensibly  the  housekeeper  of  the  group.  This 
woman  may  be  American  or  Irish,  but  is  never 
an  Italian. 

The  women  of  both  races,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  chaste  with  comparatively  few  exceptions^  In 
the  cafe  of  the  hotel  described,  a  Jewish  girl  rarely 
appeared,  and  an  Italian  girl  almost  never.  No 
girl  of  either  race  frequented  the  dance  halls.  In 
the  case  of  the  Jewish  women,  chastity  is  due  to 
religious    and    home   influences ;    in   that   of   the 


200  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Italian,  there  is,  in  addition,  the  special  protect- 
ing and  avenging  arm  of  the  male  members  of 
the  family.  Any  man  attempting  to  lead  an 
Italian  woman  astray  is  liable  to  be  visited  with 
a  severe  penalty  from  her  father,  brother  or  other 
male  relative.  Within  a  few  years  an  Italian  was 
murdered  in  the  North  End  to  prevent  his  return- 
ing to  Italy,  where  he  was  likely  to  take  up  again 
an  illicit  relationship  in  which  he  had  involved 
a  kinswoman  of  the  murderer.  The  custom  still 
obtains  among  the  Italians  that  a  girl,  especially  if 
she  is  of  marriageable  age,  shall  never  appear  upon 
the  street  without  a  chaperon.  The  loyalty  that 
goes  with  race  seems  to  afford  the  Jewish  girl,  in 
a  negative  way,  something  of  the  same  protection, 
for  when  she  does  lose  her  virtue  it  is  seldom  or 
never  through  a  man  of  her  own  race.  .Although 
many  of  the  Jewish  men  are  bigamists,  or  at  least 
are  supporting  more  than  one  woman  —  one  in  Bos- 
ton and  one  in  New  York  or  elsewhere  —  there  is 
probably  no  instance  in  the  North  End  where  a 
Jewish  woman  is  living  with  a  man  to  whom,  in 
her  opinion,  she  is  not  properly  married.  / 

The  number  of  liquor  licenses  held  in  Police 
Division  1  is  128.  Of  these,  10  are  innholders' 
licenses,  and  the  remainder,  with  the  excep- 
tion of   21,    are   ordinary   saloon    licenses.      The 


LAW  AND  ORDER  201 

21  excepted  are  distributed  among  the  drug- 
gists, grocers  and  wholesale  classes.  Thus  there 
are  in  this  division  97  bar-rooms,  including  those 
in  the  hotels.  Apportioned  equally  among  the 
inhabitants  of  the  division,  these  would  give  one 
saloon  for  about  every  309  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren. But  with  the  exception  of  the  Italian 
saloons,  few  of  them  derive  any  considerable  part 
of  their  trade  from  people  living  in  the  North 
End.  Indeed,  should  all  but  the  Italian  saloons 
suddenly  become  dependent  upon  strictly  local 
patronage,  the  larger  number  would  go  out  of  ex- 
istence at  once.  The  Jews,  who  with  the  Italians 
constitute  the  great  mass  of  the  population,  are 
not  frequenters  of  the  saloon.  Moderate  drinking 
is  very  general  among  them,  but  it  is  carried  on 
for  the  most  part  in  their  houses  and  places  of 
social  meeting.  Up  to  a  few  years  ago,  no  Jew 
engaged  in  the  liquor  business,  at  least  directly. 
At  the  present  time,  however,  two  or  three  large 
saloons  are  carried  on  by  Jewish  proprietors. 
Irish  and  Scandinavian  bartenders  are  employed 
in  them  to  draw  in  the  trade  of  the  Irish  and 
Scandinavians.  The  Italians,  though  they  are  be- 
ginning to  drift  into  the  American  saloons,  patron- 
ize chiefly  the  saloons  of  their  own  people.  These 
saloons,  which  are  distinctly  Italian  in  character, 


202  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

are  situated  on  North  street  and  one  or  two  adjoin- 
ing streets,  and  are  resorted  to  for  social  as  well 
as  drinking  purposes.  Indeed,  gaming  rather  than 
drinking  seems  to  be  their  chief  attraction.  A 
man  buys  a  glass  of  light  wine  or  beer,  and  sitting 
down  at  one  of  the  little  tables,  with  which  these 
saloons  are  well  supplied,  passes  two  or  three  hours 
in  some  game  of  chance  with  his  companions,  or  in 
watching  the  play  that  may  be  going  on. 

The  great  bulk  of  saloon  patronage  at  the  North 
End,  as  has  been  said,  is  by  non-residents.  The 
prohibition  enactment  in  places  on  the  north  side 
of  Boston  sends  into  the  North  End  by  the  ferries 
and  the  railroads  entering  the  North  Union  Station 
a  great  crowd  of  people  after  liquor.  These  fur- 
nish the  great  majority  of  the  men  and  women 
arrested  for  drunkenness.  According  to  the  aver- 
age ratio  between  resident  and  non-resident  offend- 
ers who  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  police  here,  all 
but  about  450  of  the  3124  persons  taken  into 
custody  for  drunkenness  during  the  twelve  months 
ending  December  1, 1901,  had  their  places  of  abode 
outside  this  section  of  the  city. 

Here,  as  well  as  throughout  the  city,  the  number 
of  arrests  for  drunkenness  is  falling  off  appreciably 
year  by  year,  the  result,  to  some  extent,  of  a  more 
lenient  policy  on  the  part  of  the  police  in  dealing 


LAW  AND   ORDER  203 

with  "  drunks."  Whenever  circumstances  permit, 
a  man  under  the  influence  of  liquor  is  put  in  the 
care  of  friends  or  quietly  sent  home,  instead  of  be- 
ing taken  to  the  station  house,  whence  he  can  be 
discharged  only  by  the  courts.  Yet  there  seems 
to  be  an  actual  diminution  in  the  amount  of  ex- 
cessive drinking.  This  is  due,  in  some  measure  at 
least,  to  the  increased  consumption  of  beer  in  place 
of  harder  liquors. 

!  Observation  tends  rather  to  confirm  than  to  dis- 
prove the  correctness  of  this  estimate,  low  as  it 
appears.  Excessive  drinking  is  not  a  characteris- 
tic either  of  the  Jews  or  of  the  Italians.  Indeed, 
instances  of  it  among  the  former  are  extremely 
rare,  and  by  no  means  common  among  the  latter. 
The  3124  arrests  for  drunkenness  referred  to  in- 
cluded no  arrests  of  Jews  and  only  five  or  six  of 
Italians. 
\  This  moderation  in  the  use  of  alcoholic  drink  is 
easily  explained  as  part  of  the  general  frugality 
that  characterizes  both  races.  In  the  case  of  the 
Jews  it  has  a  further  explanation  in  the  habitual 
seK-control  of  this  people.  Perhaps,  also,  the 
enlightenment  of  the  race  in  the  matter  of  health, 
resulting  from  the  inculcation  and  observance  of 
their  dietary  and  other  hygienic  laws,  serves  as  an 
additional  restraint  from  immoderate  drinking.] 


204  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Among  the  Jews  and  Italians  alike,  beer  has 
displaced  to  a  very  large  extent  the  home-made 
wines  and  the  light  wines  of  Europe  ;  but  among 
the  Italians  especially,  stronger  liquors  are  begin- 
ning to  displace  both.  In  the  Italian  home  the 
bottle  of  "  rock  and  rye  "  is  seen  with  increasing 
frequency  by  the  side  of  the  bottle  of  Chianti. 
While  this  change  in  the  direction  of  more  intoxi- 
cating drink  is  due  more  or  less  to  mere  imitation 
of  American  ways,  it  is  also  a  result  of  the  demand 
for  stronger  stimulants  created  by  the  severer  strain 
of  life  in  this  country.  With  the  increase  in  the 
use  of  ardent  spirits,  the  amount  of  drunkenness 
will  of  course  increase,  and  in  time  sobriety  may 
cease  to  be  a  characteristic  of  the  Italian  citizen. 

There  are  no  gaming-places,  strictly  speaking, 
in  the  North  End.  Men  play  for  drinks  or  even 
for  small  sums  of  money  in  the  pool-rooms  and  in 
some  of  the  saloons  ;  but  gaming-places  with  rou- 
lette wheel  or  other  implement  of  chance,  or  where 
large  sums  are  staked  at  cards,  are  not  to  be  found 
at  this  end  of  the  city.  Consequently,  whatever 
gaming  is  carried  on  here  is  of  a  comparatively 
harmless  character,  and  is  confined  for  the  most 
part  to  the  resident  population. 

Groups  of  boys,  especially  newsboys  and  boot- 
blacks, may  be  seen  at  almost  any  time  in  side 


LAW  AND  ORDER  205 

streets,  doorways  and  elsewhere,  shooting  craps  or 
engaged  in  some  other  game  of  skill  or  chance. 
The  public  playground  adjoining  the  Paul  Revere 
school  is  a  favorite  gathering-place  of  these  youth- 
ful gamesters.  Here  they  congregate  in  consider- 
able numbers,  especially  on  Sunday  mornings,  sta- 
tioning sentinels  on  the  street  at  either  side  to 
guard  against  surprise  by  the  police.  But  this 
and  other  similar  precautions  do  not  always  avail, 
for  occasionally  the  police  make  a  descent  upon 
the  boys  and  take  one  or  more  into  custody  as  a 
warning  to  the  rest.  Of  the  seventy-five  persons 
arrested  in  this  section  of  the  city  for  gaming  dur- 
ing the  year  1901,  the  majority  were  juveniles. 

The  gaming  spirit  which  shows  itself  in  the  boys 
is  conspicuous  on  all  sides  in  the  men.  Generally 
speaking,  the  Jews  and  Italians  are  habitual 
gamesters.  Necessarily,  the  stakes  are  small,  but 
the  play  seems  to  lose  none  of  its  zest  on  this 
account*  Unlike  the  Jews,  who  shun  publicity  in 
this  as  in  most  of  their  other  diversions,  the 
Italians  frequent  the  Italian  saloons,  where  they 
wiU  play  hour  after  hour,  perhaps  merely  "  for  the 
drinks."  Every  evening  during  the  week,  and 
many  an  afternoon,  especially  in  winter,  any  one 
of  these  saloons  is  crowded  with  men  sittinsf  at 
the  tables  over  their  wine  or  beer,  intent  upon  a 


206  AMEEICANS  IN  PROCESS 

game  of  chance  played  with  the  fingers.  Cards 
are  not  allowed  in  the  saloons,  but  are  very  gener- 
ally played  elsewhere.  Those  who  play  at  home 
take  their  table  out  of  doors  if  a  suitable  place  is 
at  hand  and  the  weather  permits.  A  group  of 
these  open-air  players  may  not  infrequently  be 
seen  on  a  pleasant  summer  afternoon  in  the  courts 
leading  off  Hanover  and  North  streets.  Here  the 
bits  of  bright  drapery  flung  over  the  galleries  of 
the  surrounding  houses,  the  plants  in  the  windows, 
and  the  gayly  colored  head-coverings  of  the  women 
moving  about  give  a  foreign  air  to  the  scene. 

While  the  Italians  engage  in  ''  finger  play  "  in 
their  saloons,  and  gather  about  the  card-tables 
in  the  open  air,  the  Jews  carry  on  their  play  in 
the  privacy  of  their  homes,  shops  and  clubrooms. 
"Pinnacle,"  the  favorite  of  their  card  games, 
seems  never  to  lose  its  fascination  for  old  or  young. 
One  passing  along  Salem  Street  may  see  in  the 
rear  of  one  shop  after  another  a  group  of  men, 
some  of  them  quite  venerable  in  appearance,  en- 
gaged in  this  game.  !  Now  and  then,  especially 
among  the  Italians,  a  quarrel  results  from  some 
turn  in  the  play,  which  brings  what  is  going  on  to 
the  attention  of  the  police ;  but  the  gaming  itself 
by  either  race  is  seldom  of  a  character  to  warrant 


police  interference.' 


LAW  AND  ORDER  207 

f  Strangely  enough,  crime  at  the  North  End,  while 
comparatively  small  in  amount,  is  to  a  considerable 
extent  of  the  most  serious  character.  Between 
such  minor  offenses  as  drunkenness,  simple  larceny 
or  gaming,  and  the  greatest  of  all  crimes  in  the  eye 
of  the  law,  there  are  few  gradations.  During  the 
last  eight  years  twenty  murders,  whose  perpetrators 
were  found  out  and  convicted,  have  been  com- 
mitted in  this  section  of  the  city.  Of  these  mur- 
derers fourteen  had  their  homes  here,/  During 
the  twelve  months  so  often  referred  to,  three  men 
were  arrested  for  murder  and  four  for  assault 
with  intent  to  murder  —  all  residents  of  the  North 
End.  \  Thus  a  population  that  on  the  whole  is 
orderly  and  law  abiding  almost  to  an  exceptional 
degree  includes  an  element  of  a  strikingly  different 


n 


character.j 

\  But  these  murderers  and  would-be  murderers 
are  of  a  single  race,  —  the  Italian,  and  of  the  Sicil- 
ian or  Calabrian  branch  of  that  race ;  and  they  by 
no  means  are  representative  of  the  population,  or 
even  of  the  Italian  people.  Moreover,  while  some 
of  them  premeditated  their  crimes,  the  majority 
acted  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment ;  hence  are 
homicides  rather  than  murderers^  Of  the  twenty 
convicted  of  murder  within  the  last  eight  years, 
only  one   was   convicted  of   murder   in    the    first 


208  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

degree.  Some  of  tlie  murders  were  to  satisfy  a 
blood  feud  perhaps  of  long  standing,  or  to  avenge 
an  insult  or  injury  to  a  kinswoman  of  the  mur- 
derer. Indications  of  the  Mafia  are  to  be  found 
at  the  North  End,  but  none  of  the  murders  here 
have  been  traced  directly  or  indirectly  to  that 
organization. 

Although  the  Italians  often  exert  themselves  in 
behalf  of  a  guilty  countryman,  they  do  so  in  order 
to  save  the  Italian  name  from  the  disgrace  that  his 
punishment  would  cast  upon  it.  Their  action  does 
not  mean  that  they  condone  the  offense  or  even 
have  any  special  regard  for  the  individual.  Un- 
fortunately, such  efforts  are  having  a  most  perni- 
cious effect  upon  the  more  ignorant  of  their  country- 
men in  lessening  respect  for  law  and  in  creating 
amons"  them  at  the  same  time  an  erroneous  im- 
pression  as  to  the  protective  power  of  money. 
Not  infrequently  an  Italian  undergoing  search  in 
the  police  station  is  found  to  have  a  roll  of  bills  on 
his  person,  which  he  keeps,  as  he  says,  to  use  when 
he  gets  into  trouble. 
^  To  remove  one  cause  of  so  many  murderous  acts 
by  their  countrymen,  a  number  of  Italians  several 
years  ago  petitioned  the  governor  to  revive  and 
enforce  the  law  against  carrying  concealed  weap- 
ons.    With  the  revolver  and  stiletto  out  of  reach, 


LAW  AND  ORDER  209 

they  believed  whatever  fierce  passions  might  be 
aroused  woukl  in  most  instances  subside  before  a 
crime  was  committed.  But  on  the  general  ground 
of  individual  freedom,  the  governor  refused  the 
request ;  and  nearly  every  Italian,  as  soon  as  he 
arrives  in  this  country,  procures  a  revolver,  which, 
together  with  his  stiletto,  is  always  at  hand  tot 
resent  an  affront  or  to  avenge  an  injury.  ^^ 

f^  Other  than  murder,  and  assault  with  intent  to 
murder,  there  is  but  little  serious  crime  at  the 
North  End.  Of  course,  where  so  many  saloons 
stand  open  to  the  passing  throngs,  there  are  more 
or  less  assaults  —  289  in  the  year  of  which  the 
police  statistics  have  been  given.  Burglary  is  of 
infrequent  occurrence,  a  district  of  this  description 
offering  but  few  inducements  to  the  professional 
thief.  Italian  boys,  and  to  a  less  extent  Jewish 
boys,  steal  junk  whenever  an  opportunity  presents 
itself,  and  commit  other  minor  offenses.  In  the 
Italian  rising  generation  especially,  an  increasing 
spirit  of  lawlessness  is  very  noticeable.  Gangs  of 
these  boys  are  beginning  to  present  a  serious  prob- 
lem, the  so-called  "  American  spirit "  appearing  to 
have  peculiar  possession  of  them.  ; 


The  Jews  seldom  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  po- 
lice, but  they  cannot  be  called  a  race  "  void  of 
offense    against  the    public    order    and   welfare." 


210  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

They  are  especially  prone  to  contentions  with  one 
another,  as  well  as  with  their  Gentile  neighbors. 
No  other  people  come  to  the  police  station  so  often 
to  make  complaints  and  demand  redress.  The 
ground  of  their  grievances  is  usually  that  of  abu- 
sive or  threatening  language  or  some  form  of  per- 
sonal violence.  In  nearly  all  cases  their  feelings 
have  been  hurt  more  than  their  bodies.  Either 
side  will  produce  witnesses  to  almost  any  number 
in  support  of  its  affirmations  or  denials.  The 
readiness  of  the  Jews  to  commit  the  crime  of  per- 
jury has  passed  into  a  proverb  in  this  part  of  the 
city.  But  the  characteristic  thrift  of  the  race  does 
not  desert  the  complainants  even  in  the  heated 
recital  of  their  wrongs,  real  or  fancied  ;  for  unless 
they  see  in  the  satisfaction  which  they  demand 
some  pecuniary  gain  to  themselves,  they  usually 
drop  their  accusations.  Isolated  and  aggravated 
cases  of  arson  and  swindling  and  other  serious 
crimes  with  a  similar  motive  have  occurred  among 
the  Jews  in  both  the  North  and  West  Ends. 
There  are  occasional  instances  of  such  crimes 
which  suspicion  ascribes  to  them,  but  where  evi- 
dence has  been  skillfully  covered  up.  f  In  general, 
the  law  of  the  land  is  feared  rather  than  respected 
by  Jewish  immigrants  ;  and  a  considerable  propor- 
tion of  them  show  a  tendency,  in  many  petty  ways, 


LAW  AND  ORDER  211 

to  violate  its  spirit  while  formally  observing  the 
letter.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  Jewish  commu- 
nity is  law  abiding  to  a  marked  degre^ 

That  portion  of  the  West  End  under  review  lies 
wholly  within  the  bounds  and  comprises  about  four 
fifths  of  the  territory  of  Police  Division  3.  Inas- 
much as  it  includes  nearly  all  of  the  characteristic 
part  of  the  division,  the  police  statistics  for  the 
division  as  a  whole  may  be  taken  as  a  trustworthy 
guide  to  the  criminal  tendencies  here.  During 
the  year  ending  December  1,  1901,  there  were 
4192  arrests  in  the  division,  including  2804  for 
drunkenness,  261  for  assault,  8  for  murder  and 
being  accessory  to  murder,  6  for  manslaughter,  12 
for  robbery  and  assault  to  rob,  50  for  breaking  and 
entering  dwellings  and  buildings,  165  for  simple 
larceny,  124  for  offenses  against  chastity,  including 
night-walking,  13  for  keeping  a  noisy  and  disor- 
derly house,  and  47  for  gaming,  being  present 
where  gaming  implements  were  found  or  keeping 
a  gaming-house.  In  addition,  248  suspicious  per- 
sons and  11  vagrants  and  tramps  were  taken  in 
charge,  514  sick  and  injured  persons  were  assisted, 
135  disturbances  were  suppressed  and  28  dead 
bodies  cared  for. 

The  West  End,  as  well  as  the  North  End,  is 
traversed   by   great   thoroughfares   to    the  North 


212  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Union  Station  and  to  adjacent  cities  and  towns. 
Moreover,  the  variety  theatres  and  dime  museums 
on  Bowdoin  Square  and  Court  and  Howard  streets 
bring  throngs  of  people  into  the  district.  Hence, 
as  at  the  North  End,  much  of  the  wrong  doing  here 
is  by  strangers  and  sojourners.  Of  the  4192  per- 
sons arrested  in  this  division  in  1901,  2338  were 
residents  and  1854  were  non-residents.  On  an 
average,  between  two  fifths  and  one  half  of  all 
offenders  have  their  homes  elsewhere  in  the  city 
or  altoo^ether  outside  Boston.  This  ratio  falls 
below  that  in  the  case  of  "  drunks,"  since  the  sa- 
loons clustered  about  the  West  Boston  and  Craigie 
bridges  and  the  North  Union  Station  derive  no 
little  amount  of  their  patronage  from  the  suburban 
places,  especially  those  in  which  prohibition  is  in 
force.  It  is  rumored  that  the  proprietors  of  some 
of  these  saloons  contribute  annually  to  the  no- 
license  campaign  funds  in  the  city  directly  across 
the  Charles. 
/  Like  the  North  End,  the  West  End  to-day  is  in 
a  state  of  moral  recovery,  although  it  never  reached 
such  a  point  of  degradation  as  the  North  End  forty 
or  fifty  years  ago.  Its  moral  regeneration  like- 
wise, so  far  as  this  has  come  about,  has  been  due  to 
similar  causes,  —  the  breaking  up  of  centres  of  vice 
and  crime  and,  in  those  sections  where  morality  was 


LAW  AND  ORDER  213 

at  its  lowest  ebb,  the  displacement  of  the  vicious 
and  semi-criminal  population  by  Jewish  and  Italian 
immigrants.     Within   the   last  three  years  seveiL- 
hotels  of  the  same  general  type  as  the  North  End 
hotel  described  have  been    closed  by  the  police, 
with  excellent  results.     But  this  movement  in  the 
direction  of  moral  betterment  has  had  less  local 
support  than  at  the    North  End,  chiefly  because 
of  the  large  lodging-house  population  here.     Pro- 
verbially,   lodgers    concern    themselves   but   little 
about  neighborhood  conditions.     Hence  the  West 
End  presents  a  better  field  than  the  North  End 
for  the  observation  of  what  may  be  done  by  po-; 
lice  measures  in  making  "  vice  difficult  and  virtue^ 
easy."  -■--^' 

That  section  of  the  AYest  End  between  Green 
and  Allen  streets  and  the  North  Union  Station 
differs  but  little  in  the  general  character  of  its 
population  from  the  North  End,  and  may  be  re- 
garded as  an  extension  of  that  part  of  the  city. 
With  a  few  rather  unimportant  qualifications,  what 
has  been  said  of  the  criuiinal  tendencies  at  the 
North  End  applies  equally  well  to  this  particular 
region.  Occasionally  a  crime  is  committed  here 
unlike  any  that  is  apt  to  occur  at  the  North  End, 
as,  for  instance,  burglary.  Prostitution  is  to  be 
found  under  particularly  hideous  forms  in  the  West 


214  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

End.  Certain  of  the  Italians  marry  abandoned 
women  of  other  nationalities  for  the  sake  of  shar- 
ing, the  proceeds  of  their  shame.  In  the  vicinity 
of  Green  Street  a  dozen  or  more  of  these  men 
with  prostitute  wives  have  established  themselves, 
each  couple  occupying  a  separate  lodging  or  tene- 
ment and  carrying  on  usually  a  "  speak-easy,"  or 
kitchen  bar-room.  The  extreme  difficulty  of  get- 
ting convicting  evidence  against  these  places  serves 
as  a  sort  of  protection  to  them.  Whether  the 
husbands  have  other  occupations  or  not,  they  spend 
much  of  their  time  in  soliciting  for  their  evil 
resorts.  This  sort  of  traffic,  however,  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  Italians,  but  is  the  branding  mark  of 
"  lovers  "  of  whatever  race. 

The  "  lovers,"  both  white  and  black,  constitute 
a  numerous  class  in  the  West  End.  They  are  gen- 
erally well  dressed  and  not  unattractive  in  appear- 
ance and  manner.  In  fact,  their  success  depends 
very  largely  upon  the  maintenance  of  a  pleasing 
address.  The  majority  have  no  employment  but 
subsist  wholly  upon  the  money  provided  by  their 
mistresses.  When  this  is  not  enough  for  their 
wants,  they  do  not  hesitate  to  resort  to  abusive 
treatment  in  order  to  get  more.  "A  bit  of  the 
strap  "  is  not  an  uncommon  method  for  inciting  a 
girl  to  renewed  efforts  in  her  calling  of  shame.     In- 


LAW  AND  ORDER  215 

deed,  the  terrorism  which  the  "  lovers  "  often  ex- 
ercise over  these  women,  and  the  heartlessness  with 
which  they  will  desert  one  favorite  for  another, 
deepen  beyond  measure  their  infamy.  Neverthe- 
less, however  brutal  he  may  be,  a  man  of  this  sort 
seems  to  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  a  woman 
to  support  hmi.  Formerly  the  police  were  wont  to 
belabor  with  their  clubs  such  a  character  wherever 
found ;  this  irregular  though  not  uncommendable 
treatment  is  no  longer  permitted.  Groups  of  this 
class,  well  dressed,  well  fed,  and  smoking  cigars, 
stand  about  on  the  streets  or  loiter  over  the  pool- 
table  or  bar ;  while  the  girls  who  support  them  are 
urged  on  by  fear  lest  their  earnings  fall  short  of 
the  sum  demanded,  and  violence  or,  what  they  fear 
even  worse,  desertion,  be  the  penalty. 

A  few  well-known  houses  of  ill  fame,  and  certain 
other  houses  of  a  suspicious  character,  still  exist 
in  the  West  End.  Real-estate  interests,  and  some- 
times even  public  sentiment  itseK,  stand  in  the  way 
of  closing  them.  At  one  time  the  police  were 
about  to  succeed  in  breaking  up  the  oldest  and 
best  known  of  these  houses  through  keeping  a 
persistent  watch  upon  it ;  but  the  neighbors  ob- 
jected so  strongly  to  a  continuance  of  the  surveil- 
lance, because  of  the  annoyance  to  themselves,  that 
the  attempt  had  to  be  abandoned.     However,  the 


216  AMERICANS  IN  PEOCESS 

number  of  such  places  is  far  less  than  formerly. 
Access  to  those  that  do  survive  is  closely  guarded. 
Strangers  cannot  gain  admission  unless  satisfactorily 
vouched  for.  Solicitation  from  windows  or  door- 
ways is  practically  unknown  except  in  the  lowest 
haunts  of  the  Negroes.  Street-walkers  may  still 
be  seen,  but  their  every  movement  is  watched  by 
the  police.  The  moment  one  of  these  women 
is  seen  attempting  to  ply  her  evil  trade,  she  is 
warned,  if  not  at  once  placed  under  arrest.  Some 
of  these  street-walkers  are  "badgers,"  or  women 
whose  business  it  is  to  entice  men  to  rooms  where 
they  may  be  robbed  by  accomplices.  While  pros- 
titution is  still  carried  on  here,  its  methods  have 
changed  within  recent  years.  Instead  of  the 
parlor  house  there  is  the  variety  theatre,  the  low- 
priced  cafe,  and  especially  the  hotel.  With  one  or 
two  exceptions.  West  End  hotels  are  houses  of 
assignation.  "Lovers,"  or  "runners,"  are  also 
taking  the  place  more  and  more  of  women  seeking 
their  own  victims. 

The  places  of  amusement  which  centre  about 
Court  Street  between  Hanover  Street  and  Bowdoin 
Square  have  already  been  spoken  of  as  bringing 
into  the  West  End  throngs  of  people  living  elsewhere 
in  the  city  or  in  the  suburbs.  They  serve  also,  of 
course,  to   bring  into  this  part  of  the  city  great 


LAW  AND  ORDER  217 

numbers  of  men  and  women  of  the  theatrical  profes- 
sion who  furnish  their  entertainment.  Now  while 
such  people  are  as  a  rule  orderly  and  well  be- 
haved, they  call  around  themselves,  in  the  hotels 
and  boarding-houses,  and  in  the  theatres,  an  objec- 
tionable class  of  both  sexes.  These  hangers-on 
—  young  men  about  town,  prostitutes,  gamblers 
and  crooks  of  various  descriptions  —  give  much  of 
that  character  to  the  professional  quarter  and  sur- 
rounding region  popularly  attributed  to  it.  How- 
ever well  deserved  this  character  may  have  been, 
it  no  longer  holds  to  the  same  extent ;  for  within 
the  last  few  years  the  Howard  Street  neighborhood 
has  undergone  a  distinct  change  in  the  upward 
direction.  Fights  are  much  less  frequent  than 
formerly ;  and  in  the  number  of  vicious  and 
criminal  acts  there  has  been  a  marked  falling  off. 
One  cause  of  this  improvement  has  been  the 
closing  on  Howard  Street  of  three  hotels  through 
the  withholding  of  their  liquor  licenses. 

The  Negro  quarter  at  the  West  End  includes 
among  its  population  a  class  of  the  vicious  and 
semi-criminals,  both  black  and  white.  This  ele- 
ment is  larger  relatively  than  once  it  was,  through 
the  removal  of  so  many  of  the  respectable  and  well- 
to-do  colored  people  to  Cambridgeport,  the  South 
End  and  elsewhere.     Yet  poverty  and  social  de- 


^  Sexual  immorality,  the  characteristic  shortcom- 


218  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

gradation  are  no  oftener  synonymous  in  the  case 
of  the  Negro  than  in  that  of  the  white  man. 
Close  by  some  of  the  worst  haunts  on  the  back 
slope  of  Beacon  Hill  are  blocks  and  sections  occu- 
pied by  decent  and  law  abiding,  though  extremely 
poor  families. 

l. 
ing  of  the  race,  is  made  by  many  of  the  Negroes 

directly  or  indirectly  a  means  of  gaiia^  There  are 
numerous  women  who  seek  white  men  as  well  as 
those  of  their  own  color  on  the  street ;  and  instances 
are  not  uncommon  of  colored  men,  often  with 
white  wives,  following  the  inhuman  ways  of  the 
Italian  husbands  who  have  been  referred  to.  Even 
among  apparently  respectable  families,  prosti- 
tution is  indirectly  made  an  additional  source  of 
revenue  through  the  rental  of  rooms  by  the  even- 
ing or  night.  Robbery  often  accompanies  prosti- 
tution, and  not  infrequently  is  the  chief  motive 
in  it. 
j  In  the  section  given  over  to  the  Negroes,  alley 
leads  off  alley,  with  perhaps  a  narrow  passage  to  a 
different  street  from  that  by  which  the  first  alley 
was  entered.  Sometimes  these  unsuspected  exits 
wind  between  high  buildings,  or,  in  one  instance 
at  least,  go  directly  under  a  building.  From  this 
particular  underground  passage  open  the  doors  of 


LAW  AND  ORDER  219 

a  number  of  tenements,  apparently  the  only  means 
by  which  the  tenements  can  be  reached.  A  curi- 
ous group  o£  wooden  houses  at  the  corner  of 
Phillips  and  Anderson  streets  has  recently  been 
torn  down.  Between  the  buildings  ran  wooden 
walks  —  now  on  one  elevation,  now  on  another,  the 
different  elevations  reached  by  flights  of  steps  — 
and  bridges  extended  from  the  upper  story  of  one 
house  to  the  corresponding  story  of  another,  and 
from  roof  to  roof.  It  suggested  to  the  visitor  the 
scene  of  the  flight  of  Bill  Sykes  from  the  police, 
and  his  subsequent  suicide,  as  described  by  Dickens 
in  ''  Oliver  Twist." 

Now  the  very  opportunities  for  vice  and  crime 
that  this  general  section  affords  must  draw  thither 
the  vicious  and  criminal.  Wherever  wrong  doing 
can  be  carried  on  comparatively  free  from  obser- 
vation or  with  small  danger  of  apprehension  if 
detected,  there  the  wrong  doers  will  congregate. 
The  stage  of  real  life  seldom  waits  long  for  actors 
to  carry  on  the  play  for  which  the  scene  is  set. 
Dens  for  infamy  will  sooner  or  later  become  dens 
of  infamy.  Moreover,  the  dark  and  unsanitary 
dwellings,  of  which  there  are  many,  and  the  over- 
crowding, which  is  to  be  found  here  and  there, 
combine  to  foster,  if  not  to  call  into  existence, 
tendencies  to  immorality.     Moral  ills  as  well  as 


220  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

physical  ills  spring  from  unwholesome  surround- 
ings. Therefore  the  first  remedial  agencies  here 
should  be  light,  air  and  sanitation.  Not  until 
the  housing  conditions  have  been  radically  im- 
proved can  the  community  be  reclaimed.  If  Gar- 
den Street  Arch,  Grove  Street  Terrace  or  Strong 
Place  is  to  be  brought  up  to  a  uniformly  decent 
standard,  the  initiative  must  be  taken  by  the 
Board  of  Health.  When  the  conditions  of  a 
moral  life  have  been  provided,  then  will  come 
the  time  for  the  churches  and  other  moral  and 
religious  agencies. 

As  at  the  North  End,  gaming  has  been  nearly 
stamped  out.  What  survives  is  carried  on  behind 
closed  and  carefully  guarded  doors.  The  game  is 
invariably  poker,  since  the  implements  for  roulette 
or  faro  could  not  be  concealed  quickly  and  effectu- 
ally in  case  of  a  visit  from  the  police,  or  easily 
removed  to  another  place  when  flight  becomes 
necessary.  Forty-seven  arrests  for  all  offenses  in- 
volving gaming  is  the  record  for  the  year  ending 
December  1,  1901. 

Policy,  likewise,  while  not  suppressed  completely, 
is  kept  well  "on  the  run."  Chances  are  sold  in 
and  around  the  hotels  and  saloons  and  on  the 
street,  but  with  every  precaution  against  attract- 
ing the  attention  of  the  police.     While  this  evil 


LAW  AND  ORDER  221 

has  peculiar  attractions  for  the  Negroes,  it  is  by  no 
means  confined  to  them. 

The  saloons  at  the  West  End,  of  which  there  are 
eighty-eight,  differ  but  little  from  those  at  the  North 
End,  excepting  the  Italian  saloons  among  the 
latter.  Like  the  North  End  saloons  also,  they  have 
a  very  large  non-resident  patronage.  For  this  the 
numerous  places  of  amusement  described,  as  well 
as  the  thoroughfares  to  Cambridge  and  the  North 
Union  Station,  divide  the  responsibility.  Here,  as 
elsewhere  in  the  city,  a  drunken  man  is  seen  with 
surprising  infrequency  when  the  enormous  number 
of  saloon  patrons  is  taken  into  account. 
I  There  is  comparatively  little  serious  crime,  as  at 
the  North  End.  Of  the  nine  persons  arrested  for 
murder  achieved,  attempted  or  alleged,  a  number 
were  fugitives  from  outside  the  city.  Members  of 
the  under  world  gravitate  in  this  direction  rather 
than  to  the  North  End,  because  of  the  places  of 
amusement  here.  Certain  bar-rooms  and  hotels, 
especially  in  the  vicinity  of  Howard  Street,  are 
more  or  less  gathering-places  of  this  class.  Here 
and  around  the  theatres  and  on  the  streets  the 
police  would  look  for  a  "suspect,"  rather  than  in 
any  particular  lodging-house  block  or  section. 
Indeed,  no  particular  lodging-house  street  is  espe- 
cially given  over  to  crooks  of  any  kind. 


222  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

As  to  life  and  property,  both  districts  are  safe 
to  a  degree.  In  nearly  every  case  tlie  victim  of  an 
assault  or  robbery  is  partially  to  blame  for  what 
befalls  him.  The  well-behaved  can  come  and  go 
at  any  and  all  times  in  either  of  these  districts 
with  little  or  no  fear  of  molestation.  Of  course 
the  man  looking  for  adventure  is  very  apt  to 
find  what  he  seeks.  As  regards  gaming,  both 
sections  are  practically  closed ;  and,  in  respect  to 
prostitution,  are  far  from  being  "wide  open."  The 
old  dance  halls  have  gone,  and  though  a  few  new 
ones  have  appeared,  they  are  not  of  so  low  a  type. 
Saloons  are  numerous  in  each,  but  excessive  drink- 
ing is  rather  on  the  decrease  than  on  the  increase. 
With  the  exception  of  an  occasional  murder  or 
murderous  assault  among  the  Sicihans,  crime  of  a 
serious  nature  is  of  comparatively  infrequent  occur- 
rence. Although  the  number  of  arrests  year  by 
year,  with  the  exception  of  those  for  drunkenness, 
has  not  fallen  off  very  noticeably  during  the  last 
few  years,  the  offenses  for  which  the  arrests  were 
made  are  increasingly  of  a  minor  character. 

Whatever  may  be  true  of  individual  patrolmen, 
there  is  no  evidence  that  the  police  in  general  are 
protecting  prostitution  or  any  other  form  of  vice 
or  crime.  Indeed,  most  of  the  signs  point  in  quite 
the  contrary  direction.      Connivance  with  wrong 


LAW  AND  ORDER  223 

doing  there  may  be  on  the  part  of  a  man  on  the 
beat  here  and  there,  but  it  does  not  extend  far  up 
in  the  force.  A  prominent  member  of  the  under 
world  has  declared  emphatically  that  he  could  do 
no  "  business  "  with  the  captain  at  the  West  End. 
Nevertheless,  there  are  men  who  sometimes  suc- 
ceed in  collecting  considerable  sums  of  money  from 
wrong  doers  by  representing  themselves  as  influen- 
tial in  police  circles,  if  not  the  direct  agents  of 
police  authorities.  These  "  middlemen,"  as  they 
are  styled,  merely  trade  on  some  chance  acquaint- 
ance with  a  member  of  the  police  department,  and 
as  a  rule  work  solely  in  their  own  interests.  There 
are  instances  where  they  have  been  so  bold  as  to 
actually  assume  the  name  of  some  prominent  offi- 
cial. In  most  cases  they  soon  come  to  grief  through 
the  failure  of  their  victims  to  receive  the  exemption 
^rom  police  interference  guaranteed. 
I  At  the  North  and  West  Ends  alike,  an  up- 
ward moral  tendency  is  more  and  more  apparent, 
hastened  in  the  case  of  the  former  by  a  constantly 
growing  public  sentiment.  Whatever  other  causes 
this  tendency  may  have  had,  it  is  due  in  no  small 
measure,  especially  at  the  North  End,  to  the  sup- 
planting of  the  low  and  vicious  element  by  people 
of  cleaner  lives  and  higher  ideals.  \ 


CHAPTER  VIII 
life's  amenities 

The  outer  aspect  of  great  cities,  even  of  con- 
trasted American  and  European  cities,  grows  less 
dissimilar  year  by  year.  Nevertheless,  enough  of 
the  Old  World  can  yet  be  found  in  some  sections 
of  the  North  and  West  Ends  so  that  the  stranger 
coming  into  these  parts  almost  forgets  that  he  is 
in  America.  The  language  heard  on  every  side  is 
in  a  foreign  tongue,  and  the  palpitating  interest 
and  variety  of  the  street  life  give  one  a  feeling 
that  he  is  having  a  glimpse  into  some  far-off  town 
or  village.  A  wealth  of  song  and  story  is  brought 
to  mind  by  some  word  or  gesture,  a  Neapolitan  lilt 
or  two  belligerents  biting  thumbs  even  as  did  the 
ill-fated  Montague  and  Capulet. 

The  light-heartedness  of  the  Italians,  and  their 
keen  love  of  pleasure,  make  an  atmosphere  so  full 
of  gayety  that  a  spectator  for  the  time  is  led  to 
overlook  the  many  discomforts  which  must  natu- 
rally fall  to  the  share  of  a  people  so  closely  crowded 
together.     But  perhaps  these  discomforts  affect  the 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  225 

Italians  less  than  any  other  race,  for  they  love  the^ 
open  air  and  the  general  fellowship  of  their  kind, 
and  every  possible  moment  is  spent  beyond  the 
confines  of  the  house  walls.  The  first  glimpse  of 
spring  brings  with  it  thronging  streets,  crowded 
doorways  and  well-filled  open  windows.  With 
uncovered  heads,  the  women  and  girls  saunter  up 
and  down  the  sidewalks,  or  with  their  bits  of  cro- 
cheted lace,  intended  for  home  decoration,  sit  in 
some  doorway  or  at  an  open  window,  where  they 
may  gossip  with  a  neighbor  or  join  in  a  gay  street 
song.  Here  too  may  be  seen  the  curved  knitting 
needle  used  by  the  older  Italian  woman  as  she 
rounds  out  the  stocking  for  the  coming  winter. 
The  men  crowd  the  curbstone  or  open  street,  dis- 
cussing the  politics  of  their  country,  their  personal 
injuries  or  the  possibilities  for  assisting  some  less 
fortunate  brother.  Groups  of  men  and  boys,  num- 
bering fifteen  or  twenty,  congregate  in  some  street 
or  square,  and  immediately  there  is  such  emphatic 
utterance,  fiery  denunciation,  violent  gesture  and 
all-pervading  excitement  as  would  convince  the 
unaccustomed  that  a  mass  meeting  was  discussing 
the  wrongs  of  a  nation,  rather  than  that  a  casual 
group  of  neighbors  was  exchanging  gossip. 

The  street  offers  much  to  vary  what  is  otherwise 
often  a  life  of  mere  monotony  and  toil.    The  street 


226  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

piano,  which  is  an  ever-present,  ever-welcome  en- 
tertainer, starts  the  children  dancing.  Their  feet 
have  already  forsaken  the  steps  of  Italy.  It  is  not 
any  peasant  dance  through  which  they  flit,  with 
the  native  lightness  and  aptness  of  their  rhythmic 
land ;  it  is  the  prancing,  burlesqued  grace  of  the 
Afro-American  cake  walk.  The  hurdy-gurdy  is 
played  by  Italians  of  the  south,  and  each  instru- 
ment is  usually  accompanied  by  a  man  and  a 
woman,  the  latter's  deft  handling  of  her  tambourine 
often  calling  forth  enthusiasm  from  the  onlookers. 
These  women  retain  the  full  peasant  costume  as  a 
dramatic  property.  The  short,  full  skirts  are  usu- 
ally made  of  some  cotton  stuff.  The  kerchiefs  worn 
about  the  shoulders,  of  the  brightest  yellows,  the 
richest  browns  and  purples  and  the  most  brilliant 
reds  and  greens,  bordered  with  bands  of  colored 
flowers,  are  not  in  the  least  dimmed  by  the  bright 
blues,  magentas  and  Roman  stripes  of  the  aprons, 
which  are  always  a  part  of  the  street  dress.  Even 
the  folded  kerchief  thrown  over  the  back  of  the 
head,  as  a  protection  from  the  rays  of  the  sun,  is 
more  or  less  gay.  The  arrangement,  however,  of 
these  bits  of  color  is  often  of  the  very  crudest. 
The  kerchiefs,  the  quaint  jewelry,  the  long  ear 
pendants  and  the  talisman  worn  about  the  neck 
are  much  coveted  bits  of  decoration,  highly  prized 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  227 

by  the  possessors  and  passed  down  from  genera- 
tion to  generation. 

Nowhere  out  of  Naples  can  a  truer  picture  of 
southern  Itahan  life  be  found  than  in  the  home  of 
the  street  piano  and  its  grinder.  While  on  the 
street  these  people  are  really  working,  caught  in 
the  whirl  of  American  life ;  but  when  they  have 
turned  in  for  the  night,  and  all  the  hurdy-gurdies 
have  been  housed,  the  performers  are  free  to  re- 
lapse into  their  native  temper.  The  court  in  which 
a  large  number  live  is  transformed  as  if  by  magic, 
and  the  Bella  Napoli,  with  all  its  gayety,  its  lights 
and  shadows,  suddenly  stands  out  upon  the  scene  of 
the  North  End  of  Boston.  Everything  is  there,  — 
the  song,  the  tambourine,  the  accordion,  and  lastly 
the  dance  and  the  glass  of  Chianti.  There,  indeed, 
the  tarantella,  the  favorite  and  famous  dance  of 
southern  Italy,  is  performed  exactly  as  it  is  among 
the  crags  of  Capri,  or  at  sundown  beside  the  in- 
hauled  fishing  nets  of  Sta.  Lucia.  Nothing  is 
wanting  —  the  dark,  rich  coloring  of  the  skin,  the 
heavy  hair,  the  bright  touches  of  color  in  the  dress, 
and  the  sturdy  peasants  whirling,  balancing,  tread- 
ing the  many  figures,  while  the  accordion  plays  on 
in  rapid  time  until  one  after  another  drops  out 
exhausted  and  fresh  dancers  take  the  floor.  These 
bits  of  home  country  life  are  enacted  in  the  streets 


228  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

and  courts  unfrequented  generally  by  the  outside 
world.  It  is  to  the  familiar  visitor  of  the  byways 
that  one  must  turn  for  guidance  if  he  would  really 
know  the  people  in  their  most  care-free  moments. 

The  loyalty  of  the  Italian  to  the  land  of  his 
birth,  and  his  love  of  the  dramatic,  make  him  seek 
every  opportunity  for  a  folk  festival.  The  anni- 
versaries of  the  various  benevolent  and  secret  soci- 
eties are  often  celebrated  by  processions  of  men 
and  children  carrying  gay  banners.  These,  together 
with  the  bright  sashes  of  the  little  ones  and  the 
insignia  worn  by  the  men,  cause  one  to  feel  that  the 
Italians  are  truly  a  nation  of  children,  born  to  turn 
their  world  into  a  stage,  with  every-day  life  as  the 
sufficient  material  of  the  play.  Although  they  can- 
not be  said  to  be  a  people  of  deep  religious  feeling, 
the  historic  associations  of  their  church,  and  its 
unequaled  pageantry,  appeal  to  their  emotional  na- 
tures. Easter  is  the  greatest  festival  of  the  entire 
Christian  year.  The  long  gloom  of  Lent  quickly  re- 
cedes, and  Easter  Sunday  is  truly  a  gala  day  alike 
to  the  rich  and  the  poor.  Mass  is  attended  on  that 
day  by  all  who  are  able  to  leave  their  homes  and 
who  are  within  the  pale  of  the  church.  For  church 
decorations,  potted  plants  are  coming  into  favor, 
taking  the  place  of  the  paper  flowers  and  tinsel 
ornaments  which  have  given  such  a  tawdry  air  to 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  229 

altar  dressings.  Images  of  the  Virgin  and  Risen 
Christ  are  often  carried  in  processional  with  "  music 
and  banner."  These  processions  are  frequently 
seen  in  the  streets,  as  they  pass  from  the  school 
buildings  to  the  churches.  The  various  classes  in 
the  Sunday-schools,  and  the  different  church  socie- 
ties, are  conspicuous  by  reason  of  their  particular 
ornamentations,  and  with  the  banners  and  various 
religious  symbols  the  whole  makes  an  impressive 
sight.  Easter  is  also  a  favorite  time  for  the  cele- 
brating of  weddings,  as  the  Catholic  Church  pro- 
hibits the  solemnizing  of  any  marriages  during  the 
Lenten  season.  The  dinner  on  Easter  Day  is  one 
of  the  great  events  of  the  year.  The  entire  family 
is  collected,  and  certain  dishes,  peculiar  to  the  sea- 
son, are  prepared  with  great  care  ;  ravioli,  a  kind 
of  pastry,  together  with  macaroni  in  some  form, 
are  usually  among  the  dinner  delicacies.  The  de- 
coration of  the  table  is  perhaps  of  as  much  interest 
as  the  food  itself.  This  is  peculiarly  true  so  far 
as  the  children  are  concerned,  for  their  places  are 
indicated  by  confetti  and  sugar  toys,  the  latter  of 
the  gayest  colors.  This  Easter  dinner  is  usually 
followed  by  a  dance.  Indeed  a  succession  of  many 
large  dancing  parties  is  given  at  this  time  of  the 
year. 

The  more  elaborate  of  the  candy  toys  used  at 


230  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

the  holiday  seasons  are  the  work  of  the  Neapolitan 
confectioner  of  North  Square,  whose  reputation  as 
an  artist  in  sugar  has  made  it  possible  for  him  to 
secure  for  his  work  prices  that  are  not  dreamed  of 
by  other  shopkeepers.  Many  tales  could  be  told 
of  these  gay  bits  of  sugar :  how  they  are  used  first 
to  decorate  the  festal  board,  how  they  are  after- 
wards carried  by  the  children  like  a  favorite  doll, 
until  the  bright  color  has  been  replaced  by  dust 
and  grime,  and  how  they  are  finally  broken  into 
fragments  to  sweeten  the  breakfast  cup  of  coffee,  — - 
thereby  combining  thrift  and  aesthetics  in  a  charac- 
teristic if  not  felicitous  way.  A  visit  to  this  rare 
workshop  and  salesroom,  all  in  one  apartment,  is 
well  worth  while,  particularly  at  the  Christmas  and 
Easter  seasons.  For  weeks  in  advance  the  confec- 
tioner has  been  at  work,  and  the  variety  and  gayety 
of  his  wares  are  unequaled.  He  has  grown  very 
proud  of  his  skill,  and  though  deeply  grateful  for 
the  admiration  shown  by  sight-seers,  he  scorns  to 
betray  this  weakness.  With  the  simplicity  of  this 
childlike  race  neither  the  candy-maker  nor  his 
neighborhood  customers  find  any  incongruity  in 
rendering,  alike  with  the  flowers  and  fruits,  the 
doves  and  lambs  of  Eastertide,  —  loftier  symbols 
of  the  holy  and  happy  season.  Barley  sugar  to 
them  is  a  material  not  more  or  less  profane  than 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  231 

wax  or  ebony  or  gold.  A  sugar  saint  excites  no 
astonishment,  nor  does  a  deftly  moulded  figure  of 
the  Christ  upon  the  cross,  done  in  translucent  pink 
and  amber  sugar,  suggest  to  these  people  any  un- 
seemliness. 

It  is  one  of  the  great  resources  of  the  Italians 
that  they  can  extract  pleasure  from  the  humblest 
and  most  commonplace  events.  The  simpler  enjoy- 
ments are  entered  into  with  quite  as  much  zest  as 
the  greater.  The  hot  summer  evenings  are  made 
delightful  by  their  readiness  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  ferry-boats,  whole  families  getting  cool,  fresh 
air  in  this  way.  The  roof  parties  are  perhaps  the 
most  popular  summer  gatherings.  The  weeding  of 
the  tiny  herb  gardens  that  are  to  be  seen  upon  the 
roof  of  almost  every  Italian  tenement  house,  and 
the  making  of  the  brilliant  tomato  conserve,  when 
accompanied  by  friendly  chat,  cease  to  be  labor. 
This  is  also  true  of  the  many  excursions  into  the 
country  in  search  of  dandelions,  mushrooms  and 
other  table  dainties.  The  family  picnic  in  one  of 
the  breathing  spaces  of  the  city  again  shows  their 
quickness  to  get  pleasure  wherever  pleasure  may 
be  found.  Such  a  group  enjoying  supper  on  the 
Common  on  a  hot  afternoon  is  a  sight  familiar  to 
all. 

On  a  fete  day  the  houses  from  cellar  to  roof  are 


232  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

decked  with  the  red,  green  and  white  of  Italy,  as 
well  as  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  Everywhere  some 
effort  is  made  toward  holiday  dress.  Chinese  lan- 
terns, too,  often  play  a  large  part  in  the  decorations. 
During  a  recent  visit  from  a  distinguished  guest, 
North  Square  was  brilhantly  lighted  with  colored 
electric  lights,  showing  the  readiness  of  the  Italian 
people  to  adapt  themselves  to  modern  methods. 

In  winter  the  streets  are  comparatively  quiet. 
Doorstep  and  window  chats  are  transferred  to  the 
living-room.  Small  quarters  do  not  limit  sociabil- 
ity. It  is  rare  that  a  family  is  permitted  to  spend 
the  evening  alone.  Some  lodger  or  boarder  friend 
from  the  neighborhood  drops  in,  and  over  the  glass 
of  wine  or  mug  of  beer  tales  of  the  home  country 
are  told.  The  men  of  the  family  enjoy  the  life  of 
the  neighboring  saloon,  where,  aside  from  the  social 
drink,  various  games  can  be  played.  It  is  at  one 
of  these  saloons  that  the  favorite  game  of  peasant 
Italy,  "bocce,"  is  played  almost  every  evening,  and 
as  this  is  the  one  place  in  Boston  where  it  may  be 
found,  there  are  many  spectators.  The  older  peo- 
ple rarely  mingle  with  people  of  another  national- 
ity, except  the  better  educated  ones,  who  sometimes 
go  to  enjoy  a  good  play  at  one  of  the  uptown  thea- 
tres. The  operas,  too,  and  many  of  the  best  con- 
certs are  attended  by  those  who  can  afford  such 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  233 

luxuries.  Those  who  saw  the  hearty  and  apprecia- 
tive welcome  which  her  countrymen  in  the  upper 
gallery  gave  to  Signora  Duse  will  never  forget  it. 
The  Italians  have  no  theatre  of  their  own. 
Occasionally  traveling  showmen  with  marionettes 
have  stayed  for  a  season  in  the  North  End  and 
then  gone  their  way.  Amateur  theatrical  perform- 
ances are  not  infrequent.  These  busy  people  find 
time  after  the  long  hours  of  the  barber  or  tailor  or 
candy  shop  to  learn  their  parts,  attend  rehearsals, 
and  finally  to  give  their  play  in  some  hall  of  the 
city ;  and  a  very  creditable  performance  it  is,  though 
the  play  may  be  the  most  stilted  and  old-fashioned 
of  dramas.  An  air  of  domesticity  pervades  the 
audience.  Mothers  bring  their  babies,  and  the 
performers  converse  with  friends  before  the  raising 
of  the  curtain.  The  members  of  the  orchestra  are 
invited  by  name  to  dispense  their  music  with  more 
liberality.  "Pipe  up,  Tony,"  says  one  friend  to 
another,  and  they  scrape  and  pound  and  blow  till 
flesh  rebels  and  they  turn  upon  their  too  apprecia- 
tive and  too  urgent  following.  The  desire  for  amuse- 
ment and  excitement  among  the  younger  men  and 
boys  is  not  always  satisfied  with  these  more  whole- 
some pleasures,  and  some  of  them,  though  in  no 
large  numbers,  find  their  way  to  the  cheaper  thea- 
tres  and  museums.      The  Italian   girl,  however, 


234  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

unless  she  has  stepped  beyond  the  confines  of  mo- 
rality, is  rarely  seen  in  any  public  place  of  amuse- 
ment save  in  the  company  of  an  older  person. 
No  daughter  is  more  carefully  looked  after  than 
the  child  of  Italian  parents.  In  a  ballroom  the 
wall  seats  are  occupied  by  the  many  matrons  in 
attendance,  whose  beaming  faces  show  the  delight 
they  take  in  the  good  times  enjoyed  by  their 
charges.  Many  of  these  older  people  show  their 
newness  to  this  country  by  the  style  and  arrange- 
ment of  their  dress.  The  three-cornered  kerchief 
tied  over  the  head,  and  the  gay  shoulder  shawl,  are 
not  an  infrequent  sight  in  the  dancing  haU,  while  the 
daughters  of  these  same  mothers  appear  in  gowns 
made  in  the  latest  fashion.  Sometimes  these  young 
people  regret  the  lack  of  hat  or  bonnet  in  the 
street  costume  of  their  parents,  for  they  are  desir- 
ous of  having  them  dressed  like  the  "American 
lady."     As   yet  the  Americanizing  of  these  young 

%  Italian  2:irls  has  not  taken  from  them  their  refresh- 
^ng  naturalness.     Their  cards  are  filled  before  they 

I  iiave  had  time  to  remove  their  outer  wraps,  and  at 
the  first  strain  of  the  music  the  floor  is  filled,  and 
they  fairly  dance  into  the  arms  of  their  partners, 
and  this  with  no  touch  of  immodesty.  The  guard- 
ing of  the  unaffianced  is,  however,  lax  as  compared 
with  the  restraint  exercised  after  her  betrothal,  and 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  235 

indeed  often  after  her  marriage.  By  nature  tlie 
Italian  is  most  jealous  and  demands  of  his  mate, 
not  only  absolute  devotion,  but  often  abstinence 
from  almost  the  commonest  civilities  from  other 
men.  These  punctilious  demands  are  not  confined 
to  the  better  classes ;  they  are  quite  as  carefully 
obeyed  in  the  humblest  families.  A  certain  fruit 
vender,  who  cannot  aspire  to  a  push-cart,  but  must 
conduct  his  business  from  a  basket  carried  on  his 
shoulder,  can  tell,  with  as  much  pride  as  the  owner 
of  a  fruit  market  in  the  Back  Bay,  how  for  two 
whole  years,  during  his  daughter's  engagement,  she 
was  never  seen  on  the  street,  except  in  company 
with  her  mother  on  the  way  to  and  from  church, 
until  the  day  of  her  wedding.  Her  fiance,  he  will 
explain,  was  not  in  Boston,  and  they  were  anxious 
to  give  him  no  cause  for  suspicion.  Nor  does  the 
bestowal  of  the  dowry  and  the  family  jewels  belong 
to  any  one  grade  of  society.  The  poor  fruit  ped- 
dler's daughter  received  from  her  father  a  dowry 
of  two  hundred  dollars.  Her  mother's  gift  to  her 
on  her  wedding  day  was  six  pairs  of  ear-rings  and 
six  finger  rings,  all  of  quaint  design  and  of  the 
purest  gold. 

No  one  has  really  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
Italian  people  of  our  city,  or  indeed  of  any  city, 
until  he  has  seen  them  in  the  art  galleries.     A 


236  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Sunday  afternoon  in  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts 
shows  them  at  their  best.  Whole  families,  many 
of  them  unable  to  speak  English,  find  their  way 
here.  They  walk  through  the  rooms  as  if  treading 
upon  sacred  ground.  Undoubtedly  they  recognize 
in  some  of  the  statuary  copies  of  familiar  objects 
in  art-loving  Italy.  The  Italian  standard  of  beauty 
is  not  always  high  or  even  correct,  but  love  of 
beauty  as  they  perceive  it  is  a  vital  part  of  their 
lives.  If  they  often  rejoice  unwisely  in  what  is 
gaudy,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  none  more  than 
they,  and  few  as  much,  draw  deep  and  genuine  de- 
light from  the  best  that  our  public  galleries  have 
to  offer. 

Jew  and  Italian  are  near  neighbors  in  the  North 
End.  The  two  neighborhoods  touch,  but  the  line 
between  them  is  sharp,  the  atmosphere  of  each 
absolutely  alien  to  the  other.  The  genial,  care- 
free expression  of  the  men  in  the  Italian  district 
is  suddenly  missed  when  the  border-line  into  the 
Jewish  quarter  is  crossed.  There  we  find  the 
shrewd  yet  ingratiating  look  which  so  often 
means  financial  gain  at  any  cost,  even  at  the  cost 
of  seK-respect.  This,  in  the  long-bearded  Jew 
of  the  older  generation,  is  clothed  with  a  cover  of 
conscious  martyrdom.  Then,  too,  from  the  Italian 
woman,  always  hard  worked,  yet  thoroughly  alive 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  237 

to  varying  interests,  we  turn  to  the  forlorn,  almost 
degraded  woman  of  the  Jewish  household,  whose 
every  action  reveals  the  narrow,  oppressive  atmos- 
phere which  she  has  breathed  for  so  many  genera- 
tions. The  great  intellectual  gifts  of  this  race 
have  been  far  from  equally  shared  between  the 
sexes.  Book  learning  for  the  Jewish  woman  has 
in  the  past  been  thought  unnecessary,  and  the  lack 
of  education  is  keenly  written  in  the  faces  of  the 
older  women. 

Resemblance  between  these  two  localities  lies 
merely  in  the  crowding  of  the  streets  and  the  inces- 
sant trading  thereon.  While  there  is  much  that 
is  of  peculiar  interest  in  Jewish  life,  there  can  be, 
where  there  is  so  much  squalor,  but  little  real 
beauty.  On  the  streets  the  commercial  instinct 
is  everywhere  evident.  The  dangling  old  clothes, 
the  pawnshop  windows  filled  with  everything  that 
could  possibly  be  turned  into  money,  the  baskets, 
barrels  and  carts  of  foul-smelling  fish,  do  not  add 
to  the  charm  of  the  scene,  and  are  hardly  offset  by 
the  boxes  of  green  vegetables  and  ripe  fruits  which 
border  the  sidewalk  ;  but  the  human  element,  the 
owners  of  the  shops  and  wagons,  with  their  forlorn 
expressions  of  anxiety  to  sell,  the  patriarchal  old 
men,  the  intent,  purchasing  housekeepers  and  the 
energetic  young  salesmen  who  do  not  hesitate  to 


238  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

drag  customers  into  the  shops,  are  of  never-fail- 
ing interest.  The  general  dinginess  of  the  locality- 
is  perhaps  centred  in  the  unattractive  Jewish  res- 
taurants and  meat  shops.  The  windows  of  the 
former  are  filled  with  indifferent  eatables,  and 
from  the  grimy  ceilings  often  hang  festoons  of  long 
sausages,  while  the  meat  shops  display  a  great  vari- 
ety of  fresh  meats,  some  of  the  most  loathsome 
parts  of  the  fowls  and  carcasses  being  placed  on  the 
counters  in  such  quantities  as  to  lead  one  to  sup- 
pose that  they  are  in  great  demand,  if  not  looked 
upon  as  delicacies.  These  eating  saloons  and  meat 
shops  contrast  strangely  with  the  occasional  corner 
or  basement  where  second-hand  Hebrew  books  are 
sold,  and  where  the  beautiful  parchment  and  leather 
bindings  tempt  one  to  dream  of  their  scholarly- 
past.  Fine  old  brass  candlesticks  are  often  for 
sale  in  these  places.  It  is  to  such  bits  of  bright- 
ness that  this  region  owes  much  of  its  small  aspect 
of  cheer. 

During  the  warm  weather  the  streets  teem  with 
life.  Every  doorway  is  crowded  with  the  older 
people,  while  the  sidewalks  and  highways  are  popu- 
lous with  children,  some  in  an  almost  undressed 
condition.  They  are  all  great  lovers  of  music,  and 
the  advent  of  any  musical  instrument  sets  the 
youthful  feet   at  once    to  dancing.     The   Jewish 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  239 

children  dance  as  if  by  instinct,  and  their  correct 
ear  for  music  makes  them  apt  pupils  in  the  side- 
wall?:  branch  of  the  art. 

There  can  be  no  greater  contrast  drawn  be- 
tween Jews  and  Italians  than  in  their  several 
ways  of  celebrating  holidays  and  feasts,  —  the 
Italian  seeking  the  air  and  sun  on  every  occa- 
sion, the  Jew  finding  sanctuary  in  his  home  for 
festival  and  rite ;  yet  it  is  during  the  various 
holidays  that  the  Jewish  quarters  appear  to  best 
advantage.  These  seasons  first  make  themselves 
apparent  to  the  Christian  world  by  the  festal 
gowns  of  the  women  and  children.  Among  the 
older  Jewish  women,  especially  among  those  belong- 
ing to  the  Orthodox  church,  the  married  ones  are 
easily  distinguished  by  the  coarse  brown  wig  often 
made  of  some  material  other  than  human  hair,  the 
absence  of  which  after  marriage  was  formerly 
looked  upon  as  a  mark  of  immodesty.  At  times  a 
kerchief  or  a  piece  of  black  cotton  lace  is  used 
to  take  the  place  of  the  wig  ;  but  like  many  other 
customs,  this  of  covering  the  head  is  disappearing 
before  the  general  Americanizing  tendency. 
*  While  the  Jews  are  a  people  having  large  fami- 
lies, their  inborn  love  of  money-making  leads  them 
to  crowd  into  the  smallest  quarters.  Families 
having  very  respectable  bank  accounts  have  been 


240  AMERICANS  IN  PEOCESS 

known  to  occupy  cellar  rooms  wliere  damp  and  cold 
streaked  the  walls.  Yet  it  is  in  their  homes  that 
the  Jews  rise  to  their  best  level.  The  family  life 
is  usually  worthy  of  admiration.  The  parents  are 
devoted  guardians.  The  father  feels  strongly  the 
responsibility  of  instructing  his  sons  and  daugh- 
ters in  the  laws  and  customs  of  the  faith.  The 
mother  is  the  affectionate  and  interested  companion 
of  her  children,  big  or  little.  ^  Even  in  the  homes 
of  the  poorest,  candles  are  always  lighted  for  the 
Friday  evening  service,  and  the  family  assemble 
for  the  beginning  of  the  Sabbath.  On  Saturday, 
after  returning  from  the  synagogue,  the  day  is 
spent  in  visiting  or  receiving  calls.  The  neighbor, 
with  the  ever-convenient  shawl  thrown  over  her 
head,  comes  to  have  a  chat  and  a  glass  of  tea  from 
the  steaming  samovar.  Many  of  the  living-rooms 
of  the  Jewish  people  are  furnished  with  beautiful 
specimens  of  hand-made  copper  dishes  and  brass 
candlesticks,  all  of  which  are  brought  from  the 
old  home  country.  The  great  need  of  increasing 
the  family  income  often  makes  it  difficult  for  the 
immigrants  to  keep  these  fine  pieces  of  copper  and 
brass.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  one  of  their  own 
countrymen  usually  stands  near,  ready  to  offer  to 
these  financially  stranded  ones  a  sum  not  one 
quarter   of  the   market   value  of   their  treasures. 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  241 

As  a  result,  these  interesting  objects  are  gradually- 
finding  their  way  into  the  houses  of  well-to-do  Amer- 
icans, while  the  Jewish  kitchens  are  becoming 
more  and  more  filled  with  iron  ware  such  as  is  sold 
in  all  of  our  house-furnishing  stores. 

The  Jews  have  some  social  life  in  their  various 
benevolent  organizations,  culminating  in  an  oc- 
casional dance  ;  but  their  intensest  interests  of  this 
sort  centre  about  their  many  religious  ceremonies. 
In  every  home  the  circumcising  of  the  newly  born 
male  child,  the  betrothal  and  the  wedding  of  a 
son  or  daughter,  are  occasions  of  great  moment, 
and  are  looked  forward  to  as  times  of  feasting  and 
merrymaking.  The  wedding  is  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  of  these  three  functions.  The  cere- 
mony is  rarely  performed  in  the  bride's  home,  the 
lavish  hospitality  of  the  occasion  necessitating  the 
hiring  of  some  hall  for  the  reception,  even  when 
the  pair  are  married  in  the  synagogue.  The  ori- 
ental love  for  splendor  and  display  is  everywhere 
seen.  Since  it  is  possible  to  hire  all  things,  even 
the  wedding  gown  and  veil,  these  are  often,  by  the 
desire  of  the  bride,  mere  temporary  finery,  in 
order  that  the  money  saved  thereby  may  be  used 
to  increase  the  general  gorgeousness  of  the  oc- 
casion. The  hospitality  is  unbounded.  Not  only 
are  parents  and  brothers  and  sisters  constantly  on 


242  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

the  alert  to  see  that  the  guests  are  cared  for,  but 
the  bride  herself  omits  no  effort  for  their  comfort 
and  enjoyment.  Entire  families  are  among  the 
guests,  from  mothers  with  nursing  babies  to  grand- 
fathers and  grandmothers,  and  all  share  the  com- 
mon joyousness. 

At  the  ceremony,  the  father  or  mother  of  the 
bride  accompanies  her  to  the  canopy  under  which 
she  stands,  facing  the  east.  She  is  followed  by 
an  attendant,  who  is  the  wife  of  the  best  man. 
The  lights  carried  by  the  friends  of  the  bride 
recall  to  memory  the  wise  and  foolish  virgins  of 
Holy  Writ.  The  rabbi  tells  the  pair  that  they 
take  their  vows  as  descendants  of  Abraham,  Isaac 
and  Jacob  ;  gives  them  a  dissertation  on  married 
life,  and  his  blessing.  After  they  have  tasted  the 
consecrated  wine,  the  groom  crushes  the  goblet 
under  his  heel  to  show  to  the  world  his  determi- 
nation to  overcome  aU  evil  in  the  new  life  upon 
which  they  are  entering.  Dancing  foUows  the 
ceremony,  and  lasts  long  into  the  night.  Every- 
body tries  to  make  everybody  else  happy.  Young 
men  and  young  women  dance  with  small  children 
as  well  as  with  each  other,  and  pay  an  exquisite 
deference  to  their  elders.  The  wedding  supper  is 
served  at  many  tables,  so  that  all  can  sit  down 
to  the   feast.     The  men  often    take    their    seats 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  243 

before  the  women,  and  always  eat  with  their 
hats  on. 

At  the  ceremony  of  the  circumcision,  great 
honor  is  conferred  upon  the  man  chosen  to  hold 
the  child,  such  a  one  usually  being  high  in  author- 
ity in  the  church.  He  has  no  further  duties 
toward  the  chUd.  Such  ceremonies  are  followed 
by  feasting  and  dancing,  —  home-made  wine,  cake 
and  conserves  being  provided  in  abundance.  This 
free-handed  hospitahty  is  never  accompanied  or 
followed  by  intemperance. 

The  Jewish  year  has  many  holidays,  from  the 
New  Year,  which  comes  in  the  early  autumn,  to 
the  single  national  holiday,  which  is  celebrated  as  a 
day  of  thanksgiving  in  the  early  summer.  At  the 
Feast  of  Booths,  green  bowers  are  erected  on  roofs 
or  in  back  yards.  The  Feast  of  Lights  brings  into 
use  whatever  wealth  of  candlesticks  a  family  may 
possess.  A  feast  is  often  preceded  by  a  fast. 
Purim  follows  closely  upon  the  Fast  of  Esther,  and 
its  coming  is  characterized  by  masquerade  balls, 
the  exchanging  of  gifts,  and  festivities  generally. 
The  holiday  which  entails  the  greatest  preparation 
is  the  season  of  the  Passover.  It  is  then  that 
children  are  everywhere  seen  munching  the  un- 
leavened bread,  while  huge  packages  of  it  are  piled 
in  every  grocery  shop. 


244  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

The  amusements  and  merrymakings  of  the 
Jewish  people  cannot  be  described  without  further 
mention  of  their  great  love  for  music.  The  operas 
are  largely  attended  by  Hebrews,  many  being  will- 
ing to  undergo  some  sacrifice  to  hear  a  great  artist. 
They  are  also  devoted  to  the  theatre,  and  as  the 
best  are  too  expensive  for  the  poorer  people,  they 
go  in  great  numbers  to  the  cheap  places  of  amuse- 
ment. This  is  peculiarly  true  of  the  boys  and 
girls ;  and  an  evening  spent  in  the  Dime  Museum, 
the  Nickelodeon  or  the  music  hall  will  confirm  the 
observation.  There  is  no  regular  Jewish  theatre 
in  Boston,  but  several  times  during  the  year  Yid- 
dish plays  are  given  in  one  of  the  up-town  houses 
by  a  company  imported  from  New  York.  These 
plays  are  pictures  of  family  life,  usually  Russian 
in  character,  and  are  exquisite  in  their  simplicity. 
The  acting  is  of  an  artistic  quality  rarely  seen  in 
our  playhouses.  The  audience  at  such  plays  is 
most  interesting.  The  familiar  scenes,  the  old 
joys,  the  old  wrongs  and  restraints  touch  deeply ; 
progress  is  measured  by  departure  from  old  cus- 
toms. The  vigor  with  which  the  Americanized 
Jewess  applauds  revolutionary  sentiments  with 
regard  to  the  overbearing  husband  in  the  play  is 
very  significant. 
f  No  class  of  people  in  Boston  has  perhaps  less  op- 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  245 

portunity  for  recreation  than  the  Portuguese  immi- 
grants from  the  "  Western  Islands,"  as  the  Azores 
are  popularly  called.  They  come  to  us  from  their 
island  homes,  hoping  to  taste  of  riches,  the  sup- 
posed reward  of  all  who  go  to  America,  only  to 
find  themselves  swallowed  up  in  the  heart  of  a 
large  tenement  district,  their  homes  the  closest 
and  darkest,  and  their  outdoor  life  gained  only 
at  the  expense  of  long  hours  of  toil.  The  pride 
of  the  former  landholder  will  not  allow  them  to  go 
out  of  their  homes  to  work,  and  as  a  consequence 
the  usual  occupation  of  the  women  is  the  finishing 
of  men's  clothing.  They  easily  obtain  licenses  for 
the  work,  as  they  are  the  neatest  of  housekeepers ; 
but  it  is,  of  course,  one  of  the  poorest  paid  in- 
dustries. Even  when  the  clatter  of  the  sewing 
machine  has  ceased  and  the  living-room  is  deserted 
for  the  better  air  of  the  street,  the  work  of  sewing 
on  buttons  and  picking  out  bastings  does  not  cease. 
Indeed,  the  latter  is  often  assigned  to  children  of 
five  years  or  so,  while  the  older  people,  as  all  who 
have  reached  the  age  of  thirteen  years  are  consid- 
ered, undertake  the  more  difficult  work. 

With  the  early  autumn  comes  the  yearly  exodus 
to  the  cranberry  bogs  of  Cape  Cod.  This  is  a 
season  of  work  and  pleasure,  looked  forward 
to  with  the  greatest  delight.     It  is  like  a  great 


246  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

family  reunion,  for  here  they  meet  their  kinsfolk 
who  have  settled  on  the  Cape,  as  well  as  many 
relatives  and  friends  from  the  city  whom  they 
rarely  see  in  their  cruelly  over-worked  lives.  And 
after  the  busy  day  of  picking,  screening  and  mea- 
suring the  cranberries  is  over, —  which  begins  with 
the  drying  off  of  the  dew  on  the  vines  and  ends 
with  the  setting  of  the  sun, — they  are  ready  for  an 
evening  of  genuine  relaxation.  The  great  frame 
shanties,  where  many  workers  are  housed,  afford 
opportunities  for  the  exchange  of  many  a  bit  of 
gossip  and  for  many  a  game  and  dance.  A  cran- 
berry-picking in  our  sparkling  September  weather 
is  a  sight  never  to  be  forgotten.  It  has  sometimes 
been  compared  to  the  hop-picking  in  Kent,  which 
affords  many  a  Londoner  the  only  country  outing 
he  ever  gets  ;  but  just  as  the  Londoner  can  offer  no 
such  richness  of  color  in  skin  or  hair  or  costume 
as  can  these  children  of  the  sun,  no  more  can  the 
mild  moistness  of  the  English  autumn  be  com- 
pared to  a  brilliant  September  day  on  Cape  Cod. 

The  great  poverty  of  the  Portuguese  prohibits 
many  gayeties ;  indeed,  it  almost  prevents  the 
simplest  hospitality.  The  glass  of  wine  and  the 
home-made  cake  so  familiar  in  the  home  of  the  well- 
to-do  are  rarely  seen  in  the  homes  of  these  island- 
ers, yet  their  cordiality  and  sweetness  of  spirit  are 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  247 

manifest.  Constant  privations  have  led  to  some 
evils,  their  conjugal  irregularities  being  attributed 
to  poverty.  A  woman  abandoned  by  her  husband 
sees  no  necessity  for  the  expense  and  trouble  of 
any  legal  steps  before  accepting  a  second  spouse. 
She  marries  again,  regardless  of  the  existence  or 
whereabouts  of  the  deserter. 

Church  festivals  vary  the  monotony  of  their 
lives  to  a  small  degree,  and  the  occasional  dance 
or  picnic  gives  to  these  temperate  and  unusually 
industrious  people  a  little  of  deserved  good  cheer. 
They  have  their  benevolent  societies,  whose  treasu- 
ries must  be  replenished  from  time  to  time,  and  this 
can  best  be  accomplished  by  means  of  an  entertain- 
ment. 

The  West  End  has  ever  been  the  great  habitat 
of  the  colored  race  in  Boston,  and  in  spite  of  the 
exodus  of  the  past  few  years  to  the  South  End,  to 
Cambridgeport  and  to  the  suburbs  at  the  north, 
many  yet  remain,  while  the  churches  and  the  so- 
cial gatherings  bring  back  others  who  no  longer 
have  an  abiding-place  there.  The  chief  recreation 
of  the  colored  people  of  the  West  End  centres 
about  their  benefit  or  secret  societies.  The  aver- 
age city  Negro  belongs  to  many  "orders,"  "circles" 
or  societies,  which  hold  frequent  meetings.  They 
are  usually  carried  on  in  the  homes  of  members, 


248  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

and  at  these  meetings  business  and  festivity  blend. 
Then  there  are  balls  and  receptions,  which  are 
often  most  elaborate.  A  marked  feature  of  these 
events  is  the  large  number  of  visitors  from  distant 
cities.  There  is  a  characteristic  note  about  every 
such  affair.  Whether  it  be  due  to  the  high  degree 
of  skill  gained  from  years  of  training  in  domestic 
service,  their  inborn  love  of  the  ornate  or  simple 
ebullition  of  animal  spirits,  there  is  certainly  an  air 
of  effulgence  and  exuberance  about  a  social  gath- 
ering of  colored  people  to  which  no  other  race  can 
attain.  Yet  here  as  everywhere,  by  one  of  the 
paradoxes  of  fate,  the  Negro,  who  is  the  tragic 
figure  in  our  national  life,  is  called  to  play  a  com- 
edy part.  Barred  out  from  the  society  he  most 
admires,  his  mimicry  only  excites  mirth,  and  when 
he  touches  the  white  race  on  grounds  of  social 
equality  it  is  the  meeting  of  outcast  with  outcast. 
Back  of  some  of  the  haunting  scenes  of  vice  in  the 
West  End  stalks  the  spectre  of  race  prejudice 
which  has  shut  off  from  their  kind  once  respectable 
persons  who  have  married  members  of  the  black 
race.  On  the  other  side  of  the  shield  we  see  in 
the  faces  of  refined  and  cultured  colored  men  and 
women  the  triumph  of  nature  over  the  degrading 
relations  which  slavery  enforced.  It  is  surely  as 
unjust  to  judge  the  colored  race  by  its  worst  as  it 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  249 

would  be  so  to  judge  the  whites ;  while  on  the 
other  hand,  the  story  of  the  ascent  of  the  black 
man  is  unparalleled  in  rapidity  by  that  of  the  more 
favored  race.  Among  the  educated  class  the  re- 
markable evolution  of  the  woman's  club  of  recent 
years  has  played  its  part,  and  in  the  State  Fed- 
eration of  Working  Women's  Clubs  there  are 
no  more  earnest  and  intelligent  members  than  a 
group  of  young  colored  women.  The  Negro  has 
dwelt  with  us  long ;  but  so  fixed  are  our  notions  of 
his  character  and  limitations  that  it  is  with  a  shock 
of  surprise  and  wonder  that  we  come  upon  a  gath- 
ering of  the  best  of  the  colored  race,  differing  not 
one  whit  in  manners,  in  taste  or  in  appearance, 
save  for  the  richer  color  of  the  skin,  from  any  simi- 
lar group  of  white  people.  The  traditional  traits 
of  the  Negro,  dearly  loved  by  story-tellers  and 
playwriters,  the  florid  manner,  the  brilliant  garb, 
the  autics  and  the  inconsequence  are  not  far  to 
seek ;  but  what  has  been  achieved  by  the  few  may 
be  achieved  by  the  many,  and  the  hfe  of  the  com- 
munity may  yet  be  made  greater  by  the  awakening 
of  this  youthful,  untried  race.\ 

The  Irish  are,  of  course,  the  most  numerous  of  our 
foreign-born  population ;  but  they  have  been  with 
us  so  long  and  so  intimately  that  they  have  become 
more  closely  identified  with  the  native  life  than 


250  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

have  other  races.  The  more  ambitious  have,  as 
a  rule,  moved  away  from  their  first  homes  in  the 
North  and  West  Ends,  pushed  out  by  the  invading 
Jew  and  Italian.  (A  very  great  number  of  people 
are  still  attached  to  the  Irish  Catholic  churches.  A 
degree  of  social  life  centres  in  the  churches.  They 
furnish  only  a  single  bit  of  pageantry  to  the  streets. 
The  processions  of  children  crowned  with  wreaths 
and  wearing  colored  sashes,  which  are  to  be  seen  in 
the  Whitsuntide  season,  with  the  banners,  mottoes 
and  little  images  which  are  carried,  suggest  the 
spectacles  dearly  loved  by  the  peasants  over-seas. 
Aside  from  church  relations,  there  are  dances  for 
some  unfortunate  brother,  or  the  annual  balls  and 
picnics  of  labor  organizations  and  of  the  innumer- 
able social  clubs.  The  Hibernian  is  first,  last  and 
always  a  social  being,  and  this  instinct  does  not 
fail  him  even  in  his  times  of  distress  and  bereave- 
ment. For  this  reason,  genuine  grief  and  sympa- 
thy are  not  incompatible  with  keen  appreciation 
of  a  convivial  touch  in  the  wake  and  of  the  pomp 
and  drama  of  the  funeral.  The  near-by  summer 
resorts  draw  crowds  from  the  Irish- Americans 
every  Sunday  or  holiday  or  evening  off.  In  the 
winter  the  theatres  attract  large  numbers  of  them. 
In  some  cases  they  become  regular  subscribers  to 
the  less  expensive  playhouses  of  good  repute.    The 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  251 

distinguishing  characteristic  of  Irish- American  so- 
cial gatherings  is,  of  course,  their  pohtical  signifi- 
cance. 

The  theatre  and  things  theatrical  fill  a  large  place 
in  the  life  of  the  people  of  the  North  and  West  Ends. 
Not  only  is  there  a  very  numerous  theatre-going 
population,  but  in  the  district  between  Scollay 
Square  and  Bowdoin  Square  there  exists  a  world 
almost  untouched  by  any  outside  life.  The  hun- 
dreds of  performers  in  the  cheap  theatres  and 
museums  thereabout  come  and  go,  taking  no  part 
in  our  common  life.  The  crowding  of  the  "  profes- 
sion "is  so  great,  and  competition  is  consequently 
so  fierce,  that  to  keep  pace  they  must  rehearse  and 
retouch  and  embellish  their  "  acts "  during  their 
spare  moments.  Their  stock  in  trade  is  some  phy- 
sical peculiarity  —  a  flexible  spine,  an  iron  jaw,  a 
brazen  voice  —  or  some  gift  in  the  way  of  dancing, 
dreary  repartee  or  mimicry.  They  form  partner- 
ships —  conjugal  ones,  too  —  for  business  ends,  and 
sever  them  when  it  seems  desirable  so  to  do,  with 
no  thought  of  their  relation  to  the  community. 
They  have  few  acquaintances  beyond  the  walls  of 
the  theatres,  and  as  their  specialties  pall  or  rivals 
crowd  them  out,  they  one  by  one  drop  from  the 
ranks  and  are  submerged  in  the  crowd.  In  spite 
of  the   irregularity  and   irresponsibility  of   their 


252  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

lives,  mucli  that  is  innocent  may  be  found  in  them. 
There  is  no  glamour  about  the  stage  for  these  peo- 
ple. Their  daily  round  is  just  so  much  work  to 
be  done,  with  the  hope,  often  unfulfilled,  of  another 
job  in  the  future.  As  to  the  character  of  their  per- 
formance, there  is  much  that  is  harmless,  a  part  that 
has  actual  merit,  and  a  part  that  is  positively  bad. 
The  audiences  are  drawn  not  only  from  various 
parts  of  the  city,  but,  in  the  more  notorious  places, 
from  all  parts  of  New  England.  The  rural  visitor 
who  wishes  to  plunge  into  dissipation  in  Boston  hies 
to  these  hunting-grounds  of  the  thief,  the  prosti- 
tute and  the  gambler. 

The  several  places  of  amusement  attract  differ- 
ent kinds  of  audiences.  One  of  them  —  the  Bow- 
doin  Square  Theatre  —  is  the  home  of  sensational 
melodrama  free  from  indecency.  Another  appeals 
to  a  morbid  love  of  the  abnormal,  and  "  freaks  " 
of  all  kinds  may  be  found  there.  At  the  others 
the  performance  consists  of  a  medley  of  innocent 
accomplishments,  inane  chaff  and  the  grossest  vul- 
garity. Too  many  of  the  younger  people  of  foreign 
extraction  are  finding  their  way  to  these  places ; 
but  it  is  doubtful  if  as  yet  they  form  an  appreci- 
able proportion  of  the  audiences. 

There  is  one  note  always  discernible  in  the 
daily  life  of  the  foreign  peoples  of  the  North  and 


LIFE'S  AMENITIES  253 

"West  Ends,  and  nowhere  is  it  clearer  than  in  their 
moments  of  leisure.  In  spite  of  the  survival 
of  types,  in  spite  of  the  inevitable  longing  for  the 
home  country,  in  spite  of  all  the  differences  of 
race  and  tradition,  the  strongest  and  most  impel- 
ling of  motives,  the  most  cherished  of  ideals,  is  that 
of  becoming  American.  Color,  melody,  comfort 
and  content  —  indeed  some  of  the  sterner  virtues 
themselves  —  are  sacrificed  before  this  Goddess  of 
Democracy  whose  protecting  arms,  these  people 
from  foreign  lands  have  been  led  to  believe,  will 
afford  them  and  theirs  a  share  in  the  joys  of  life. 
Not  so  ugly  as  it  seems  at  first  glance,  then,  is 
the  ready  adaptability  with  which  the  newcomers 
take  on  the  least  commendable  of  our  customs. 
The  Italian  girl  who  forgets  her  cadenza  and  sings 
the  most  nasal  of  street  songs,  her  mother  who 
prefers  the  scrubbing  of  offices  to  the  handicraft 
of  her  ancestors,  her  father  who  forsakes  his  native 
wines  for  beer,  are  unconscious  idealists  ;  and  be- 
neath one  and  all  of  these  humble  acts  lies  a  mean- 
ing which  we  who  are  born  to  our  inheritance  would 
do  well  to  prize.  "  'T  is  not  the  custom  of  the 
country  "  is  a  phrase  that  is  changing  the  manners 
of  the  centuries  and  shaking  the  beliefs  of  ages 
past. 


CHAPTER  IX 

TWO   ANCIENT   FAITHS 

Between  the  early  religious  situation  at  the 
North  End  and  that  of  to-day,  Christ  Church, 
whose  house  of  worship  stands  on  Salem  Street,  is 
the  single  connecting  link.  When  it  was  organ- 
ized in  1723,  it  was  the  second  church  of  the 
Episcopal  faith  and  order  in  Boston.  At  the  Old 
North,  Increase  Mather  was  ending  his  long  pas- 
torate, and  Cotton  Mather,  his  son  and  colleague, 
was  in  the  height  of  his  power.  Peter  Thatcher 
was  occupying  the  pulpit  at  the  New  North,  his 
caU  a  few  years  before  having  been  the  cause  of  a 
remarkable  dissension  in  the  church.  The  New 
Brick  Church  had  been  recently  organized  by  one 
of  the  factions  in  this  quarrel.  Conveniently 
located  by  the  side  of  the  Mill  Pond  was  a  little 
wooden  structure  in  which  the  frowned-upon  Bap- 
tists were  worshiping. 

An  especial  interest  attaches  to  Christ  Church 
because  of  the  stately  and  now  historic  building 
which   it   has   occupied   from    the   first.     In   the 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  255 

steeple  of  this  edifice,  according  to  tradition,  were 
displayed  the  signal  lanterns  of  Paul  Revere  which 
warned  the  country  of  the  march  of  the  British  to 
Lexington  and  Concord ;  from  its  tower  General 
Gage  witnessed  the  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill;  and 
in  one  of  the  burial  vaults  beneath  its  nave  the  re- 
mains of  Major  Pitcairn  reposed  until  transferred 
to  Westminster  Abbey. 

Indeed,  the  historic  associations  connected  with 
its  house  of  worship  have  served  to  keep  the  church 
where  it  is,  notwithstanding  the  decreasing  number 
and  wider  and  wider  scattering  of  its  adlierents. 
Of  the  hundred  or  more  communicants  on  its  rolls 
to-day,  less  than  twenty  reside  within  the  limits 
of  the  North  End,  and  a  good  part  of  the  fifty  or 
sixty  members  of  its  Sunday-school  come  from  East 
Boston  and  Charlestown.  The  Sunday  morning 
service  —  the  only  service  of  the  week  which  is 
regularly  maintained  —  brings  together  a  small 
congregation  made  up  chiefly  of  sight-seers. 

Other  Protestant  survivals  are  three  agencies 
of  different  denominations  for  religious  and  social 
work  among  the  sailors.  Sea-faring  men  have  been 
a  class  more  or  less  numerous  at  the  North  End 
ever  since  the  days  when  the  town  dock  was  where 
Faneuil  Hall  now  stands  and  wharves  reached  out 
into  the  water  from  the  present   North  Square. 


256  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

All  three  agencies  hold  religious  meetings,  give  aid 
to  seamen  in  distress,  provide  lectures,  entertain- 
ments and  suppers,  maintain  a  reading-room  and 
visit  among  the  sailors  in  their  homes  and  boarding- 
places  and  on  shipboard.  The  Mariners'  House, 
under  Methodist  management,  provides  a  home 
where  seamen  can  obtain  board  at  moderate  rates. 
If  in  circumstances  of  need,  they  are  received 
and  cared  for  free  of  charge.  The  Baptist  Bethel 
restricts  its  efforts  less  than  the  others  to  the  sea- 
faring class,  carrying  on  a  Sunday-school  and  sev- 
eral educational  and  industrial  classes  made  up  of 
children  and  young  people  from  the  neighborhood. 
It  spreads  its  net  wide  by  calling  itself  "  a  church 
for  seamen  and  landmen, "  and  now  employs  an 
Italian  missionary  to  look  after  people  of  his  own 
race  living  round  about. 

Not  aU  the  Protestant  religious  agencies  in  the 
North  End  to-day  are  survivals  of  the  past.  In 
1894  a  Methodist  Episcopal  minister  of  Italian 
birth  began  work  among  his  countrymen.  The 
following  year  a  church  of  seventy  members  was 
organized,  which  five  years  later  had  a  total  enroll- 
ment of  over  five  hundred,  of  whom  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  constituted  its  actual  resident 
membership.  One  reason  of  this  growth,  which 
came  exclusively  from  the  Roman  Catholics,  was 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  257 

to  be  found  in  the  social  and  educational  privileges 
provided  by  the  church.  Unfortunately,  however, 
the  logic  of  the  come-outer  has  appeared  in  a  di- 
vision of  the  church  itself.  Part  of  the  people, 
with  the  pastor,  have  taken  up  the  Congregational 
form  of  organization. 

Certain  specially  degraded  conditions  of  life, 
formerly  more  characteristic  of  the  North  End 
than  now,  brought  the  "  slum  corps  "  of  the  Salva- 
tion Army  to  their  relief.  A  small  mission  for 
Scandinavian  seamen,  and  one  more  survival  of 
other  times  in  a  single  personal  representative  of 
the  "  Society  for  the  Employment  of  Bible  Head- 
ers in  Boston,"  fill  out  the  number  of  Protest- 
ant religious  agencies.  With  the  exception  of  the 
two  Italian  churches,  all  nine  minister  chiefly  to 
sojourners  or  to  social  outcasts  and  the  extremely 
poverty  stricken,  leaving  the  more  stable  and  nor- 
mal classes,  who  make  up  the  bulk  of  the  popula^- 
tion,  practically  untouched.  Even  in  the  case  of 
the  Italian  Protestant  fragments,  they  include 
unattached  and  shifting  individuals  rather  more 
than  family  groups.  The  serious  truth  is  that  if 
any  or  all  of  these  Protestant  agencies  should  drop 
out  completely,  the  general  religious  situation  in 
the  North  End  would  be  affected  almost  not 
at  all. 


258  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

At  the  West  End  there  has  not  been,  of  course, 
so  long  a  religious  history  as  in  the  North  End, 
and  there  are  no  survivals  of  old-time  church  life. 
Several  of  the  old  buildings,  including  that  of  the 
West  Church,  associated  with  great  names  in  its 
pastorate,  are  still  standing,  but  have  been  turned 
to  other  uses.  There  is  in  the  West  End  a  larger 
constituency  available  for  Protestant  ministrations 
than  in  the  North  End.  This  is  true  chiefly  on 
account  of  the  colored  population. 

A  Negro  church,  the  Zion  Methodist,  is  the 
oldest  existing  religious  organization  in  the  West 
End.  It  dates  from  1836.  Through  the  removal 
of  so  many  Negroes  from  this  part  of  the  city, 
barely  a  third  of  the  moderate  number  of  its  at- 
tendants live  in  the  vicinity  of  its  house  of  worship, 
on  North  Russell  Street.  The  rest  have  their 
homes  in  the  South  End,  Cambridgeport,  Charles- 
town,  and  even  farther  away. 

There  are  three  other  congregations  of  colored 
people  in  the  part  of  the  West  End  covered  by 
these  studies,  —  the  Revere  Street  Methodist,  the 
Twelfth  Baptist  and  St.  Augustine's.  Not  far 
away  is  the  Charles  Street  Methodist.  With 
the  exception  of  the  last,  they  are  small  —  the 
Revere  Street  Church  comprising  scarcely  a  hand- 
ful —  and  draw  but  a  minor  part  of  their  audi- 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  259 

ences  from  the  immediate  vicinity.  Among  them 
there  is  no  cooperation  and  but  little  common  ac- 
quaintance. Indeed,  an  association  of  the  colored 
churches  of  the  district  would  be  very  distasteful 
to  the  Negro.  In  his  religion,  as  in  other  things, 
he  would  forget,  and  have  all  others  forget,  that  he 
is  colored.  He  will  never  of  his  own  accord  draw 
the  line  between  himself  and  the  white  man. 

St.  Augustine's  is  a  missionary  outpost  for  col- 
ored people,  sustained  by  the  Church  of  St.  John 
the  Evangelist.  It  possesses  an  advantage  over  the 
other  Negro  churches  in  that  it  has  a  white  rector 
and  a  corps  of  white  assistants,  for  white  religious 
workers  are  more  acceptable  to  the  colored  peo- 
ple than  religious  workers  of  black  skin.  This  is 
due  partly  to  the  higher  moral  character  that  as  a 
rule  white  preachers  and  missionary  visitors  pos- 
sess, and  partly,  also,  to  the  aggressive  feeling 
of  equality  between  one  Negro  and  another  that 
is  characteristic  of  the  colored  race.  The  women 
helpers  of  St.  Augustine's  are  members  of  the 
Sisterhood  of  St.  Margaret,  a  religious  order  of 
the  Episcopal  Church,  whose  headquarters  in  Bos- 
ton are  in  Louisburg  Square,  a  short  distance  away. 
The  rector  is  one  of  the  group  of  Cowley  Fathers 
who  constitute  the  ministry  of  the  Church  of  St. 
John  the  Evangelist. 


260  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Alone  of  tlie  five  churches  mentioned,  St.  Augus- 
tine's is  establishing  vital  points  of  contact  with 
its  neighborhood.  Indeed,  it  is  the  only  one  of 
the  five  whose  removal  would  involve  serious  loss 
to  the  Negroes  of  this  section  of  the  West  End. 
Even  those  who  have  no  connection  with  the 
church  often  turn  to  it  when  they  need  the  offices 
of  a  minister  or  desire  personal  counsel.  But  this 
local  activity  is  only  a  part  of  the  work  of  St. 
Augustine's.  The  majority  of  its  one  hundred 
and  fifty  communicants,  with  a  proportion  nearly 
as  large  of  the  attendants  upon  its  services,  are 
scattered  throughout  the  city  and  suburbs,  espe- 
cially in  Cambridgeport.  Among  those  recently 
removed  to  the  South  End,  a  branch  Sunday-school, 
with  occasional  religious  services,  has  been  estab- 
lished. St.  Augustine's,  with  all  the  authority  it 
can  command,  endeavors  to  hold  its  followers  to  a 
reasonably  high  standard  of  morality.  Although 
it  is  not  always  successful,  moral  lapses  are  per- 
haps no  more  frequent  among  its  adherents  than 
among  those  of  many  a  white  church.  Aside  from 
the  hold  it  has  on  its  own  members,  it  exerts  a 
marked  restraining  influence  from  wrong  doing 
upon  the  entire  colored  population. 

Of  course  the  Negroes  of  the  West  End  do  not 
confine  their  church-going  to  organizations  of  their 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  261 

own  race  or  to  the  district  in  whicli  they  live.  In 
fact,  within  half  a  mile  or  more  of  Beacon  Hill, 
there  are  few  churches,  not  excepting  the  Roman 
Catholic,  into  which  they  fail  to  find  their  way. 
The  considerations  which  guide  them  in  the  selec- 
tion of  a  place  of  worship  are  by  no  means  pecul- 
iarly their  own.  Too  often,  as  with  men  and 
women  of  another  complexion,  their  motives  may 
be  resolved  into  the  desire  for  social  distinction. 
The  woman  who  can  claim  membership  in  Trinity 
parish  is  apt  to  feel  socially  superior  to  her  female 
neighbor  attending  the  Zion  Methodist  or  Twelfth 
Baptist.  St.  Augustine's  itself  wins  and  holds 
many  of  its  followers  less  by  its  ritual  than  by  the 
social  prestige  it  is  thought  to  confer.  Those  who 
go  into  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  do  so  because 
here,  as  they  believe,  black  and  white  will  be  treated 
as  equals. 

A  considerable  part  of  the  colored  people  have 
no  church  affiliation  whatever.  Nor,  with  the 
single  exception  of  St.  Augustine's,  is  there  any 
religious  agency  trying  to  reach  this  class  of  the 
unchurched,  which  includes,  of  course,  the  vicious 
and  criminal  element  among  the  Negroes.  Prob- 
ably no  section  in  Boston  calls  for  wise  and  ener- 
getic religious  work  as  does  the  colored  quarter  of 
the  West  End.     Here  the  missionary  will  find,  if 


262  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

not  the  largest  opportunity,  at  least  the  most  urgent 
need. 

The  Church  of  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  with  its 
monastic  clergy,  holds  a  unique  place  among  the 
Episcopal  churches  of  Boston.  From  the  character 
of  its  worship  and  discipline,  it  appeals  to  Episco- 
palians of  extreme  ritualistic  tendencies  scattered 
throughout  the  city.  Thus  it  is  the  church  of  a 
special  class  rather  than  of  a  particular  locality. 

The  opposite  extreme  to  the  elaborate  ritualistic 
worship  at  St.  John  the  Evangelist's  is  the  service 
at  the  Second  Keformed  Presbyterian,  or  "  Cove- 
nanter," Church  on  Chambers  Street.  Here  the 
use  of  a  church  organ  is  not  tolerated,  and  only 
the  psalms  in  a  metrical  version  are  sung.  Psalm 
singing.  Scripture  reading,  prayer  and  a  sermon 
make  up  the  order  of  worship.  The  membership 
of  this  church  is  composed  of  Scotch  people  from 
the  British  Provinces,  having  their  homes  for  the 
most  part  outside  the  city.  The  building  where 
they  meet  was  a  chapel  of  the  Old  South  Church 
when  that  society  worshiped  in  the  historic  edifice 
on  Washington  Street. 

The  First  Methodist  congregation  is  another 
example  of  a  fairly  prosperous  church  which 
touches  at  only  a  few  points  the  life  of  the  neigh- 
borhood in  which  it  worships.     Of  its  four  hun- 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  263 

dred  enrolled  members,  fully  one*  half  live  at  a  dis- 
tance from  tlie  church  building,  although  a  some- 
what larger  proportion  of  the  attendants  upon  its 
services  come  from  within  a  radius  of  half  a  mile. 
The  church  missionary  on  her  roimd  of  calls  visits 
in  Forest  Hills,  Revere,  Brookline,  Somerville  and 
Charlestown,  as  well  as  in  the  West  and  North 
Ends. 

In  the  local  work  among  the  white  people,  three 
organizations  are  striving  to  meet  their  needs  in 
some  direct  and  systematic  way.  Bulfinch  Place 
Church,  which  represents  Unitarian  effort,  ante- 
dates by  some  years  the  other  two,  having  occupied 
its  present  building  since  1869,  when  it  removed 
from  Pitts  Street.  Although  its  policy  has  been 
from  the  first  to  retain  under  its  care  all  who  have 
been  numbered  among  its  adherents,  even  after 
they  have  removed  from  the  neighborhood,  it  is 
actively  engaged  also  in  building  up  a  local  con- 
stituency. About  two  hundred  families  and  indi- 
viduals living  in  the  vicinity  are  ministered  to  in 
some  regular  way,  many  of  whom  are  without 
church  affiliation  of  any  kind.  Under  the  leader- 
ship of  its  present  pastor,  the  church  has  insti- 
tuted a  number  of  changes  in  the  direction  of  a 
social  ministry.  To  a  slight  extent  this  unsectarian 
work  touches  Jews  and  Italians. 


264  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

St.  Andrews  is  a  dependency  of  Trinity  Churcli, 
and  was  organized  through  the  efforts  of  Phillips 
Brooks  in  1876,  when  its  attractive  house  of  wor- 
ship was  built.  It  has  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
communicants,  and  nearly  as  many  members  of  the 
Sunday-school,  including  the  officers  and  teachers. 
Besides  the  usual  services,  prayers  are  read  daily 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  with  an  attendance 
varying  from  twelve  to  fifteen  persons.  At  all  of 
the  services  the  number  of  children  present  is  notice- 
able. A  parish  house  adjoining  the  church  building 
furnishes  convenient  quarters  for  the  social  activi- 
ties of  the  church,  which  include  a  medical  dispen- 
sary for  women  and  girls  and  a  mutual  aid  society 
with  insurance  benefits.  A  number  of  social  clubs 
for  boys  and  girls  are  formed  chiefly  though  not 
exclusively  out  of  the  membership  of  the  Sunday- 
school.  Space  is  provided  for  a  kindergarten  in 
charge  of  the  city,  and  a  playroom  is  carried  on  in 
the  summer  time. 

A  unique  branch  of  St.  Andrews  is  a  mission  for 
deaf  mutes,  established  in  1892.  Through  the 
minister  in  charge  and  lay  readers,  this  mission  has 
carried  the  gospel  to  deaf  mutes  in  other  Episcopal 
dioceses  of  New  England,  and  to-day  has  congre- 
gations in  Maine,  New  Hampshire  and  Ehode  Is- 
land. About  thirty  communicants  are  cared  for  by 
the  original  mission. 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  265 

When  St.  Andrews  began  its  work  twenty-five 
years  ago,  the  section  of  the  West  End  in  and 
around  Chambers  Street  was  the  home  of  a  iarge 
number  of  English-speaking  Protestants,  —  peo- 
ple from  the  north  of  Ireland  and  the  British 
Provinces,  interspersed  with  some  Americans.  To- 
day nearly  all  of  these  have  disappeared,  and  their 
places  have  been  taken  by  the  Jews  from  the  North 
End,  This  complete  change  in  the  character  of  the 
population  has  given  an  embarrassing  check  to 
the  work  of  the  church ;  but  it  holds  many  of  the 
results  of  its  effective  efforts  in  the  past,  and  is  on 
the  alert  for  whatever  forms  of  human  service  the 
needs  of  the  new  situation  may  demand. 

The  Tabernacle  Baptist  Church,  like  the  Bul- 
finch  Place  Church,  makes  special  efforts  to  reach 
the  lodging-house  class.  In  common  with  the  other 
downtown  churches  of  the  city,  however,  it  has  a 
scattered  constituency.  Hardly  more  than  a  fourth 
of  its  five  hundred  members  live  on  Beacon  Hill, 
the  remainder  having  their  homes  as  far  away  as 
Somerville,  Everett,  Chelsea,  East  Boston  or  Dor- 
chester. This  non-resident  portion  of  the  church 
includes  nearly  all  of  the  families,  while  the  un- 
attached individuals  live  in  lodging-houses  in  this 
general  section  of  the  city.  Unlike  the  Bulfinch 
Place  Church  and  St,  Andrews,  it  engages  in  few 


266  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

forms  of  social  activity,  but  is  a  people's  cliurcli 
conducted  on  distinctively  religious  lines.  If  its 
results  in  numbers  are  not  large,  tbey  are  quite 
substantial. 

In  that  part  of  the  West  End  where  the  social 
outcasts  of  both  sexes  congregate,  or  through  which 
they  pass,  four  rescue  missions  and  a  corp  of  the 
Salvation  Army  have  established  themselves.  A 
large  restaurant  is  carried  on  in  connection  with 
one  of  the  missions,  where  good  food  is  sold  at 
extremely  low  prices.  The  room  used  for  the  res- 
taurant purposes  is  below  the  line  of  the  sidewalk, 
and  is  bare  and  dingy.  There  is  no  attempt  at 
decoration,  save  a  few  Scripture  mottoes  on  the 
waU.  The  floor  is  thickly  covered  with  sawdust. 
The  deal  tables  are  without  cloths.  Cleanliness  in 
the  preparation  and  serving  of  the  food  is  notice- 
able, however.  As  many  as  eighteen  hundred  men 
have  been  fed  here  in  the  course  of  a  single  day. 
Low  as  the  prices  are,  the  place  meets  its  expenses 
and  provides  in  addition  the  funds  for  carrying  on 
the  mission,  including  the  rent  of  the  rooms  and 
the  salary  of  the  superintendent. 

Without  doubt  these  agencies  succeed  now  and 
then  in  the  reclamation  of  some  man  or  woman, 
but  their  chief  service  is  rather  one  of  witnessing 
to  the  existence  of  a  real  need  than  in  meeting  that 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  267 

need.  The  Salvation  Army  ceased  long  ago  to 
excite  opposition,  and  is  fast  ceasing  to  excite  even 
passing  interest.  Its  meetings  are  attended  by 
comparatively  few  outside  the  number  of  its  direct 
following. 

Taking  the  West  End  as  a  whole,  therefore,  it 
is  quite  clear  that  Protestantism  is  passing.  From 
the  North  End,  to  all  intents  and  purposes.  Pro- 
testantism has  already  passed.  The  religious  issue, 
in  all  its  depth  of  meaning  to  personal  and  public 
welfare  and  progress,  so  far  as  it  concerns  the 
actual  constituent  life  of  these  two  districts,  lies 
with  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Jewish  systems. 

Five  Roman  Catholic  churches  have  their  places 
of  worship  in  the  North  End  and  one  in  the  West 
End,  —  three  Irish,  two  Italian  and  one  Portuguese. 
St.  Mary's,  an  Irish  church,  is  the  oldest  as  well  as 
the  largest  of  them  all,  and  the  second  church  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  faith  established  in  Boston. 
The  site  of  its  house  of  worship  on  Endicott 
Street  was  purchased  by  the  Roman  Catholics  for 
a  church  building  as  early  as  1834,  and  two  years 
later  a  completed  structure  was  dedicated.  The 
present  building,  erected  about  twenty-five  years 
ago,  is  an  imposing  edifice  with  a  seating  capacity 
of  about  eighteen  hundred.  Since  1847  the  church 
has  been  in  charge  of  the  Jesuit  order,  which  has 
two  other  churches  in  the  city. 


268  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

St.  Mary's  is  a  mission ;  hence,  tliougli  serving 
as  a  parish  church,  its  ministry  is  not  restricted  to 
those  living  within  its  parochial  bounds.  Visual 
evidence  of  this  is  given  by  the  throngs  that  pour 
through  the  doors  of  its  sacred  edifice  after  a  Sun- 
day morning  mass  and  scatter  to  other  parts  of  the 
city.  The  procession  of  these  returning  worshipers 
going  over  the  new  Charlestown  bridge  presents 
a  truly  impressive  sight,  extending  from  one  end 
of  the  bridge  to  the  other,  a  compact  moving  col- 
umn, and  occupying  a  considerable  time  in  passing. 
Indeed,  the  non-resident  following  of  St.  Mary's 
offsets  more  or  less  the  shrinkage  in  its  local  con- 
stituency caused  by  the  removal  of  the  Irish  from 
the  North  End.  Fully  five  thousand  people  still 
attend  its  various  Sunday  services.  After  a  recent 
mission,  forty-four  hundred  came  to  its  confes- 
sional, and  there  were  many  attendants  besides 
who  visited  the  confessionals  of  other  churches. 
In  addition  to  its  ministrations  to  its  own  congrega- 
tion, St.  Mary's  maintains  chapels  at  the  city  penal 
and  pauper  institutions  on  the  harbor  islands. 

St.  Stephen's,  which  shares  with  St.  Mary's  the 
spiritual  care  of  the  Irish  Roman  Catholics  in  the 
North  End,  is  a  parish  church  merely.  Hence  it 
has  been  affected  much  more  than  St.  Mary's  by 
the  moving  away  of  the  older  and  more  prosperous 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  269 

Irish  families.  Nevertheless  it  is  still  a  large  and 
important  church.  As  the  distinctive  and  influen- 
tial parish  church  of  the  North  End,  it  has  a  spe- 
cial attraction  for  local  politicians  who  wish  to  use 
its  social  and  charitable  organizations  as  so  many 
additional  means  of  advancing  their  interests  with 
the  public. 

St.  Joseph's,  on  Chambers  Street,  cares  for  the 
Irish  Roman  Catholics  at  the  West  End,  with  the 
exception  of  those  who  attend  the  mission  church  of 
St.  Mary's.  Formerly  its  number  of  communicants 
was  so  great  that  on  special  occasions  the  spacious 
building  could  not  hold  all  who  came,  and  the 
broad  steps  leading  up  to  the  doors,  and  even  the 
sidewalk  itself,  would  be  crowded  with  kneeling 
worshipers.  To-day  no  congregation  that  comes  is 
too  large  for  the  accommodations,  so  greatly  has 
the  Irish  population  at  the  West  End  fallen  off. 

These  churches,  Kke  nearly  all  Roman  Catholic 
churches,  include  among  their  organizations  sodali- 
ties of  adult  members  for  religious  instruction  and 
the  promotion  of  a  stricter  observance  of  the 
sacraments,  and  a  conference  of  the  Society  of 
St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  to  care  for  the  poor  of  the 
parish.  In  common  with  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  general,  they  seem  to  be  realizing  the 
demoralization  caused  by  drink  among  their  people, 


270  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

and  are  increasingly  aggressive  against  it.  St. 
Mary's  and  St.  Stephen's  provide  some  opportunity 
for  secular  culture  in  a  Reading  Circle.  Each  has 
also  in  its  parish  building  a  spacious  hall  for  social 
and  other  purposes.  St.  Mary's  Hall  is  equipped 
with  stage  and  scenery  for  dramatic  performances. 
St.  Stephen's,  aside  from  its  parish  interests,  is 
taking  an  active  part  in  promoting  the  general 
welfare  of  the  North  End.  Under  its  leadership 
an  organization  of  prominent  citizens,  including 
Protestants  and  Jews,  has  been  formed  to  cooperate 
with  the  pohce  and  other  departments  of  the  city 
government  in  securing  better  conditions  through- 
out the  district. 

The  Italian  Roman  Catholics  have  had  a  place 
of  worship  on  Prince  Street  since  1874.  Their 
present  church  home  consists  of  an  older  part  dedi- 
cated in  1890,  and  a  newer  part  recently  added. 
The  church  is  known  as  the  Church  of  St.  Leonard 
of  Port  Maurice,  and  from  the  first  has  been  in  the 
charge  of  the  Brotherhood  of  St.  Francis.  Its  in- 
terior adornment  includes  some  beautiful  work  done 
and  contributed  by  parishioners.  Peculiar  interest 
attaches  to  St.  Leonard's  because  of  its  shrine  of 
St.  Anthony.  Roman  Catholics  from  aU  parts  of 
Boston,  irrespective  of  race  or  social  condition, 
visit  this  shrine  to  make  some  request,  usually  for 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  271 

physical  healing,  in  behalf  of  themselves  or  their 
friends.  Tuesday  evening  a  special  service  is  held 
for  the  visitors,  when  a  relic  of  the  saint  is  shown. 
At  this  service  the  scene  around  the  altar  suggests 
what  one  might  see  on  a  larger  scale  at  St.  Anne 
de  Beaupre,  or  even  at  Lourdes,  —  a  motley  crowd 
of  young  and  old,  of  poor  and  apparently  well-to- 
do,  of  "  the  lame,  halt  and  blind,"  pressing  for- 
ward to  kiss  the  relic  and  receive  the  blessing  of 
St.  Anthony.  The  church  derives  a  good  part 
of  its  income  from  the  gifts  of  these  visitors  and 
from  the  sale  of  smaU  articles  relating  to  St. 
Anthony. 

Dissatisfaction  on  the  part  of  some  communi- 
cants with  the  Franciscans'  management  of  St. 
Leonard's  led  to  the  establishment  of  a  second  Ital- 
ian Roman  Catholic  church  in  1895.  Those  who 
came  out  of  the  Prince  Street  church  bought, 
of  their  own  initiative,  a  building  on  North  Square 
for  the  use  of  the  new  society.  This  edifice  had 
been  the  scene  of  a  religious  and  social  work 
among  sailors  conducted  by  "Father"  Taylor,  well 
known  as  an  eloquent  Methodist  preacher.  The 
title  to  the  property  is  still  held  in  the  name  of  a 
committee  of  the  church,  although  the  church  itself 
is  under  the  direction  and  authority  of  the  diocese. 
A  situation  as  unusual  as  this,    from    a   Roman 


272  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Catholic  point  of  view,  was  brought  about  only  by 
a  special  concession  from  Rome,  and  has  but  one 
or  two  parallels  in  this  country. 

The  Church  of  the  Sacred  Heart  is  the  name 
given  to  tliis  second  congregation.  Within  its 
house  of  worship  an  interesting  scene  is  presented 
whenever  a  service  is  going  on.  At  the  farther 
end  of  the  audience  room,  presenting  a  brilliant 
contrast  to  the  dingy  walls  and  rough  woodwork 
of  the  rest  of  the  place,  rises  a  richly  adorned 
altar,  the  lofty  reredos  of  which  fills  the  entire 
space  between  the  galleries.  Kneeling  figures  of 
angels,  one  on  the  right  and  one  on  the  left, 
keep  guard  over  the  altar,  while  a  shrine  occupies 
either  corner  under  the  galleries,  before  which 
burn  great  clusters  of  candles.  Every  seat  on  the 
floor  and  in  the  gallery  is  taken,  and  all  avail- 
able standing  room  is  crowded  almost  to  the  point 
of  suffocation.  The  dark  eyes  and  swarthy  com- 
plexions of  the  worshipers,  the  gayly  colored  head 
coverings  of  the  women,  their  large  gold  or  brass 
ear-rings,  and,  indeed,  the  whole  aspect  of  the  place, 
might  easily  lead  one  to  believe  that  he  had  wan- 
dered into  a  chapel  in  the  outskirts  of  Genoa  or 
Naples. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Sunday-schools  are  largely 
attended,  but  seem  to  be  of  no  great  value.     They 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  273 

are  not  much  inferior,  however,  to  the  Sunday- 
schools  connected  with  most  of  the  Protestant 
centres  of  these  districts.  In  the  case  of  the 
Catholics,  insufficient  care  about  religious  training 
in  the  Sunday-school  is  abundantly  made  up  in  the 
parochial  school.  At  St.  Mary's  and  St.  Stephen's, 
where  alone  in  the  North  and  West  Ends,  until 
recently,  parochial  education  was  provided,  the 
schools  gather  in  practically  all  the  children  of 
those  parishes.  The  parochial  school  at  St.  Mary's 
is  the  oldest  in  the  city.  It  was  established  as  the 
result  of  an  incident  which  occurred  in  1859,  when 
a  boy  of  the  parish  was  punished  by  a  public- 
school  teacher  for  refusing  to  read  a  passage  from 
the  Protestant  Bible.  This  present  year,  both 
Italian  churches  have  opened  parochial  schools  for 
their  own  children. 

The  Irish  and  Italian  Roman  Catholics  differ 
one  from  the  other  in  certain  broad  respects,  aris- 
ing from  differences  in  the  religious  traditions,  as 
well  as  in  the  temperaments,  of  the  two  races. 
The  Vatican's  hostility  to  Italian  unity  has  created 
a  conviction  more  or  less  widespread  among  the 
Italians  that  the  church  is  the  enemy  of  the 
people's  liberties.  Wherever  this  exists,  there 
is  an  accompanying  feeling  of  estrangement  from 
the  church,  for  the  Italians  are  "  patriots  first  and 


274  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

churchmen  after."  A  considerable  number  of  the 
immigrants  retain  a  sincere  piety,  especially  those 
from  districts  where  the  priests'  authority  is  still 
unchallenged,  but  the  majority  are  indifferent  to 
their  inherited  faith.  Some  entertain  toward  it  a 
feehng  of  actual  hostility. 

The  Irish,  on  the  other  hand,  have  found  the 
church  the  very  bulwark  of  their  liberties. 
Through  it  they  have  maintained  such  nationality 
as  they  possess,  and  to  be  included  within  its  fold 
gives  them  dignity  in  their  own  eyes  and  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world.  Religious  feeling,  also,  is 
much  stronger  in  this  people  than  in  the  Italians. 
Hence,  generally  speaking,  the  Irish  are  far  more 
devoted  to  their  church  than  the  Italians,  and  sub- 
mit much  more  fuUy  to  its  authority.  But  this 
difference  does  not  show  itself  in  the  matter  of 
mere  church  attendance.  Indeed,  it  would  be  hard 
to  say  which  race  goes  to  public  worship  more 
generally,  the  Irish  or  the  Italian.  In  the  motive 
of  church  going,  however,  the  difference  appears. 
The  Irish  go  to  church  more  especially  for  reasons 
of  devotion  ;  the  Italians  for  social  reasons.  Of 
course  there  are  many  exceptions  among  both 
races  ;  all  the  devout  Roman  Catholics  are  not 
Irish,  nor  are  aU  the  indifferent  ones  Italians/)  Both 
kinds  of  motives  run  off  more  or  less  into  super- 


J 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  275 

stition.  Tlie  extent  of  this  cannot  be  traced  in 
either  nationality,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  among 
the  Italians  its  influence  is  the  more  general. 

The  social  atmosphere  which  the  Italians  cast 
about  public  worship  appears  in  the  scenes  in  Prince 
Street  and  North  Square  on  Sunday  morning. 
Those  coming  out  from  mass,  or  waiting  until  the 
hour  for  the  next  mass,  congregate  in  large  num- 
bers, fiUing  street  and  sidewalk  alike,  all  talking 
and  gesticulating.  This  open-air  conclave  has  be- 
come so  great  an  institution  that  those  working  at 
a  distance  return  whenever  possible  in  order  to  be 
present  at  it. 

The  Portuguese  Roman  Catholics  differ  little 
from  the  Itahans.  They  have,  however,  a  deeper, 
perhaps  more  superstitious,  regard  for  their  church, 
and  very  generally  attend  religious  services.  But 
the  corrective  and  restraining  influence  of  the 
church  on  their  lives  is  certainly  no  more  powerful 
than  in  the  case  of  the  Italians.  The  strength  of 
Roman  Catholicism  in  the  North  End  is  in  the 
Irish  rather  than  in  the  Latin  churches.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  St.  Mary's,  from  the  charac- 
ter of  its  ministry  and  the  loyalty  of  its  followers, 
is  the  most  important  agency  for  righteousness  in 
this  part  of  Boston.^ 

1  For  some  estimate  of  the  influence  of  the  Roman  Catholic 


276  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

Nearly  all  of  the  Jews  living  in  the  North  and 
West  Ends  are,  or  recently  have  been,  of  the 
orthodox  faith.  Their  chief  and  largest  house  of 
worship,  which  is  the  headquarters  of  orthodox 
Judaism  in  Boston,  stands  in  Baldwin  Place,  off 
Salem  Street.  This  structure,  built  originally  by 
the  Second  Baptist  Society,  has  been  occupied  by 
the  Jews  for  about  twelve  years.  Next  to  this  in 
size  and  interest  is  a  building  erected  quite  recently 
on  a  site  adjoining  Baldwin  Place.  A  third  im- 
portant meeting-place  is  in  Smith's  Court,  off  Joy 
Street,  on  the  north  slope  of  Beacon  Hill,  in  a 
building  which  was  relinquished  a  year  or  two  ago 
by  St.  Paul's  Church,  the  oldest  congregation  of 
colored  people  in  Boston.  The  change  in  the 
ownership  of  this  building  within  so  recent  a  time 
registers  the  curious  social  displacement  that  is 
coming  about  in  that  part  of  the  West  End. 

Besides  the  congregations  worshiping  at  these 
three  centres,  there  are  smaller  congregations  meet- 
ing in  various  halls.  A  number  of  families  from 
the  same  province  or  city  in  Europe  unite  to  form 
a  synagogue,  to  which  in  many  instances  they  give 
the  nam.3  of  the  place  from  which  they  come. 
These  smaller  or  "  neighborhood  "  synagogues  usu- 

Chureh  on  the  personal  and  family  life  of  its  people,  the  reader  ia 
referred  to  The  City  Wilderness,  pp.  202,  221,  sq. 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  277 

ally  combine  the  functions  of  religious  worship 
with  those  of  a  benefit  order  to  provide  against 
sickness  and  death.  The  rooms  in  which  they  meet 
are  used  also,  to  a  certain  extent,  for  social  pur- 
poses. Connected  with  each  synagogue,  and  main- 
tained by  it,  is  a  school  for  instructing  the  children 
in  the  Hebrew  language.  Additional  schools  are 
supported  by  the  synagogues  in  common,  especially 
for  the  poorer  children. 

Between  the  older  and  the  younger  Jews  there 
is  a  marked  difference  as  regards  loyalty  to  the 
faith.  The  grandparents,  and  among  the  later 
immigrants  the  middle  aged,  cling  to  the  old  cus- 
toms and  traditions  with  passionate  tenacity,  while 
each  succeeding  generation  is  more  noticeably  break- 
ing away  from  them.  One  of  the  men  of  the 
Jewish  colony  told  the  whole  story  of  the  growing 
infidelity  among  his  people  when  he  said,  "  My 
father  prays  every  day ;  I  pray  once  a  week ;  my 
son  never  prays."  But  the  attendance  at  religious 
services  is  probably,  on  the  average,  as  great  as 
among  Protestants.  Unlike  that  of  the  Protestants, 
it  is  predominantly  of  men,  for  according  to  the 
Jewish  system  the  women  are  not  under  the  same 
obligation  as  the  men  to  be  present  at  the  worship 
of  the  synagogue. 

Their  more  important  religious  festivals  are  still 


278  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

very  generally  observed,  even  by  those  who  pay 
little  regard  to  the  ordinary  round  of  religious 
duties.  The  Day  of  Atonement,  especially,  is  a 
rallying  time  for  the  indifferent  and  devout  alike, 
ushering  in  the  most  solemn  period  in  the  Jewish 
year,  —  the  period  when,  according  to  the  Jewish 
belief,  the  good  or  ill  fortune  of  each  one  is  fixed 
for  the  next  twelve  months,  and  the  lists  are  made 
up  of  those  appointed  to  die  and  of  the  souls  des- 
tined to  be  born.  Therefore  it  is  a  period  to  be 
observed  with  fasting  and  prayer,  with  attendance 
upon  the  services  of  the  synagogue,  and,  during 
certain  of  the  eight  days  of  its  continuance,  with 
abstinence  from  aU  secular  employment. 

As  the  hour  of  sunset  draws  near  on  the  even- 
ing which  marks  the  beginning  of  the  festival,  all 
the  Jewish  places  of  business  are  closed.  Throngs 
of  Jews  of  all  ages  and  both  sexes  fill  the  streets 
on  their  way  to  the  various  places  of  worship ;  for 
he  would  be  an  apostate,  indeed,  who  voluntarily 
absented  himself  from  the  synagogue  on  that  even- 
ing. Evidence  that  large  nimibers  of  the  Jews 
seldom  if  ever  attend  public  worship  throughout 
the  rest  of  the  year  is  furnished  by  the  fact  that 
during  the  Atonement  season  the  usual  s)magogues 
cannot  begin  to  accommodate  the  crowds,  and 
additional  halls  and  rooms  are  brought  into  use. 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  279 

Within  the  Baldwin  Place  synagogue  the  scene 
is  strange  and  impressive.  The  entire  floor  of  the 
place  is  a  solid  mass  of  men  and  boys,  while  the 
galleries  are  crowded  with  women  and  girls.  All 
heads  are  covered,  and  in  addition  every  male  has 
over  his  shoulders  a  "prayer  shawl," — a  scarf  of 
silk  or  linen  with  curiously  knotted  fringe  at  the 
ends.  The  older  men  are  clad  also  in  long  garments 
of  white  linen,  the  robes  of  their  burial.  Upon 
a  raised  platform  around  the  reading-desk  are 
grouped  the  readers  who  have  been  called  up  from 
the  congregation,  the  cantor  in  his  raiment  of  white 
and  gold,  and  the  members  of  the  choir,  wearing 
black  robes  and  turbans.  At  the  right  and  left  of 
the  "ark,"  in  the  "chief  seats,"  sit  the  president 
and  other  officials,  or  "  rulers,"  of  the  synagogue. 
An  ever-burning  lamp,  symbol  of  Jehovah's  pres- 
ence, hangs  high  over  all. 

As  the  service  proceeds,  the  sacred  books  from 
which  one  reader  after  another  has  read,  or  rather 
chanted,  in  a  high  pitched  voice,  are  rolled  up  and 
returned  to  the  "  ark  "  in  solemn  procession.  At 
a  given  signal  the  whole  congregation  rises  and 
breaks  into  some  repetition,  in  the  Hebrew  tongue, 
uttering  the  words  with  great  rapidity  and  swaying 
their  bodies  back  and  forward  in  rhythmical  accom- 
paniment, the  more  venerable  the  worshiper  the 


280  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

greater  his  earnestness.  The  confusion  of  sounds 
subsides,  and  the  cantor  takes  up  the  service,  his 
voice  swelling  out  in  lamentation  or  dying  away 
in  a  sob  ;  now  rising  in  a  shout  of  triumph,  now 
sinking  down  to  a  whisper  that  seems  to  be  the 
utterance  of  hope  and  peace.  At  frequent  inter- 
vals the  choir  chimes  in  with  strong,  well-trained 
voices,  singing  the  words  to  some  melody  that  has 
come  down  from  the  remote  past. 

Next  to  the  Day  of  Atonement  in  importance 
and  in  the  generahty  of  its  observance  is  the  Feast 
of  the  Passover.  This  substitutes  rejoicing  for 
humiliation  and  confession.  The  scene  of  the  sup- 
per itself  is  the  home,  not  the  synagogue.  It  is, 
indeed,  the  patriotic  and  home  festival  of  the  Jew- 
ish year,  a  combination  of  the  American  Fourth  of 
July  and  Thanksgiving. 

Sabbath  observance  is  fast  becoming  confined  to 
the  older  people.  Each  year  fewer  stores  and  work- 
shops in  the  Salem  Street  neighborhood  are  closed 
on  the  seventh  day.  When,  a  year  or  two  ago,  by 
a  special  police  concession  the  places  of  business 
in  this  particular  section  that  were  closed  on  Satur- 
day could  be  kept  open  on  Sunday,  many  of  the 
Jewish  proprietors  saw  in  this  only  an  opportunity 
to  gain  an  additional  business  day.  While  shut- 
ting the  doors  and  drawing  down  the  shades  of 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  281 

their  places  of  business  on  Saturday,  they  would 
remain  near  for  any  chance  customer.  This  abuse 
of  the  concession  led  finally  to  its  withdrawal. 
Such  incidents  would  seem  to  mark  a  serious  de- 
parture from  the  standards  of  Sabbath  observance 
in  the  stronghold  of  orthodox  Judaism. 

It  is  a  striking  fact  of  Judaism  that  it  re- 
mains a  race  bond  even  for  those  who  have  lost  its 
spiritual  impulse.  Nationality  is  still  a  mould  in 
which  their  scheme  of  the  moral  life  is  cast.  The 
patriarchal  elder  sighs  for  a  handful  of  the  sacred 
soil  of  Palestine  on  which  to  rest  his  dying  head, 
and  even  many  emancipated  youth  look  with  devo- 
tion to  the  Holy  Land. 

Zionism  as  found  in  these  districts  is  not  identi- 
fied with  extreme  orthodoxy,  but  includes  among 
its  advocates  many  who  are  far  from  strict  ob- 
servers of  their  religion.  There  is  quite  a  general 
agreement  that  its  aim  and  motive  is  to  establish 
a  refuge  in  Palestine  for  the  persecuted  of  their 
race.  In  fact,  here  as  elsewhere  it  has  more  "  the 
character  of  an  enthusiasm  than  of  a  reasoned 
policy."  Five  or  six  societies  of  Zionists  have 
their  headquarters  in  this  part  of  the  city.  Here 
they  meet  for  social  purposes,  and  maintain  a 
forum  for  the  discussion  of  current  events.  The 
ardor  of  many  of  the  members  of  these  societies 


282  AMEBICANS  IN   PROCESS 

carries  their  thoughts  beyond  the  bounds  of  a  mere 
racial  utopia  and  makes  them  socialists. 

At  the  North  and  West  Ends,  Roman  Catholi- 
cism and  Judaism,  existing  side  by  side,  present 
a  sharp  and  dramatic  contrast  to  each  other. 
Never  is  this  more  apparent  than  when,  as  some- 
times happens,  the  season  of  Easter  and  that  of 
the  Passover  are  coincident.  While  the  Roman 
Catholics  are  thronging  their  churches  in  sorrow 
and  penitence  because  of  a  betrayed,  crucified  and 
buried  Saviour,  the  Jews,  gathered  in  family 
groups  about  the  Passover  supper,  joyously  recite 
the  story  of  Israel's  deliverance  from  Egyptian 
bondage,  and  renew  their  faith  in  the  coming  of 
another  deliverer,  one  who  wiU  be  greater  than 
Moses.  In  the  Roman  Catholic  churches,  the 
figures  on  the  altars  are  shrouded  in  token  of  the 
dead  Christ ;  in  the  Jewish  home  the  door  stands 
open  for  Elijah,  the  herald  of  the  Messiah,  and 
the  cup  of  wine  is  ready  for  the  longed-for  guest. 
On  Easter  Day  the  Roman  Catholics  have  re- 
moved the  emblems  of  mourning  from  their  altars, 
and  are  rejoicing  with  the  rest  of  Christendom 
over  the  resurrection  of  Christ  from  the  dead  ; 
but  the  Jews  have  sadly  closed  the  door  opened  in 
vain,  and  poured  the  wine  from  the  untasted  cup. 

During  this  period,  if  ever,  it  is  natural  to  sup- 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  283 

pose  that  the  two  religious  elements  would  clash  ; 
but  strange  as  it  may  seem,  aside  from  the  cry  of 
"Christ-killer,"  with  which  a  Roman  Catholic 
child  now  and  then  greets  his  Jewish  fellow,  few 
expressions  of  bigotry  are  to  be  heard  on  either 
side.  In  common  with  the  Jew,  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic is  constantly  experiencing  some  disadvantage 
on  account  of  his  religion,  and  this  makes  him 
more  or  less  tolerant  of  his  Jewish  neighbor.  The 
Jew,  on  his  part,  has  learned  patience  and  long- 
suffering  through  ages  of  oppression.  In  too 
many  cases  on  both  sides,  however,  this  forbear- 
ance arises  from  lack  of  reKgious  earnestness.  In 
one  very  curious  way  they  are  actually  brought 
together  by  their  religious  difference,  for  many 
Roman  Catholic  boys  make  a  business  of  lighting 
and  caring  for  the  fires  in  Jewish  homes  on  the 
days  when  the  Jews  are  enjoined  by  their  religion 
from  engaging  in  manual  labor  of  any  kind. 
"  Fire,  fire ! "  is  the  cry  that  may  be  heard 
throughout  the  Jewish  quarter  on  the  morning  of 
such  days,  as  the  "  fire-lighters  "  go  about  seeking 
customers.  While  these  boys  render  a  needed 
service,  they  are,  nevertheless,  held  in  contempt 
by  their  employers.  Indeed,  the  ignorance  and 
stupidity  of  the  "  fire-lighters  "  has  passed  into  a 
proverb  among  the  Jews. 


284  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

The  Italians  make  the  saints'  and  other  church 
days  occasions  for  out-of-door  decorations  and 
pageantry  as  well  as  of  church  going.  In  the 
morning,  mass  is  very  generally  attended,  and  in 
the  evening,  after  the  lanterns  are  lighted,  a  pro- 
cession is  formed  which,  headed  by  a  native  band, 
parades  through  the  principal  streets  of  the  North 
End. 

The  Jews  confine  their  religious  celebrations  to 
the  synagogue  or  to  the  privacy  of  their  own 
homes.  Indeed,  one  might  walk  through  the 
Jewish  quarter  on  the  Day  of  Atonement  or  of 
the  Passover  and,  aside  from  the  number  of  Jews 
going  to  and  from  their  places  of  worship,  fail  to 
detect  any  sign  that  a  festival  is  in  progress. 

The  Jewish  religious  system  intensifies  the 
family  life.  Its  personal  moral  code  is  without 
doubt  the  secret  of  the  astonishing  vitality  of  the 
race.  The  quality  of  the  affection  which  exists 
in  the  home  seems  almost  enough  to  atone  for  the 
narrow  life  of  the  wife  and  mother,  whose  range  of 
duty  is  simply  to  bring  up  her  children  weU,  keep 
a  kosher  house  and  be  kind.  The  intense  inner 
life  of  the  persecuted  has  developed  in  many  of 
the  Kussian  Jews  a  fine  emotional  nature.  This 
ingrained  type  of  family  and  clan  religion,  how- 
ever, has  tended  to  prevent  friendly  feeling   for 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  285 

outsiders.  The  Jew  prides  himself  upon  his 
acuteness,  upon  the  high  tone  of  his  family  life 
and  upon  what  he  deems  the  special  enlightenment 
of  his  form  of  faith.  Considering  himself  superior 
to  Christians,  he  is  very  likely  to  misjudge  and 
distrust  them. 

The  Roman  CathoHc  Church  exerts  a  powerful 
constraining  and  disciplinary  power  among  its  fol- 
lowers, many  of  them  detached  from  their  social 
and  even  from  their  domestic  moorings.  This  is 
particularly  true  of  recent  immigrants,  like  the 
Italians  and  Portuguese,  in  a  country  utterly 
strange  and  bewildering  in  thought,  speech  and 
ways  of  life.  That  these  nationalities  have  on  the 
whole  maintained  so  creditable  a  morale  is  largely 
owing  to  the  Church's  overshadowing  presence  and 
its  familiar,  insistent  appeal  to  the  moral  imagi- 
nation. What  the  effect  of  the  new  life  will  be 
upon  this  influence  is  yet  to  be  determined. 

With  the  Irish,  the  Roman  Cathohc  Church 
has  had  more  time  in  which  to  provide  for  the 
new  situation.  Its  influence  in  safeguarding  the 
family  is  distinct  and  determined,  affording  an 
indispensable  check  to  the  corrupting  influences 
of  the  local  life.  The  Church  thus  preserves  the 
force  of  that  enthusiasm  which  is  one  of  the  chief 
distinctions  of  the  Irish  race,  and  affords  direction 


286  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

and  steadiness  to  an  often  mercurial  and  contradic- 
tory temperament. 

Roman  Catholicism  and  Judaism,  widely  sepa- 
rated as  they  are  in  aU  outward  aspects,  yet  funda- 
mentally meet  on  common  ground.  Their  systems 
of  ethics,  coming  down  out  of  the  long  past,  have 
brought  with  them  a  large  traditionary  element 
which  includes  prescriptions  and  observances  that 
once  fulfilled  moral  needs  but  do  not  sufficiently 
lay  hold  on  life  in  these  fast-moving  days.  AU  the 
underlying  principles  in  these  great  systems  have 
their  profound  force  and  meaning,  but  both  put 
a  disproportionate  emphasis  upon  special  observ- 
ance as  against  daily  conduct.  In  the  ghettos  and 
cloisters  of  the  past,  religion  must  needs  create  a 
world  of  its  own ;  but  the  open  world  of  to-day, 
with  aU  its  new  challenge  to  the  souls  of  men,  pre- 
sents the  living  issues  out  of  which  real  religion 
must  grow.  In  both  Roman  Catholicism  and  Juda- 
ism, punishment  is  looked  upon  as  something  extra- 
neous to  sin,  imputed  to  it  by  solemn  outward 
decree,  rather  than  like  unto  it  and  coming  out  of 
its  very  heart.  Roman  Catholicism,  by  placing  its 
awards  in  an  unseen  world,  to  a  degree  suggests 
the  inward  personal  quality  of  the  punishment  of 
sin.  In  Orthodox  Judaism  the  penalties  of  diso- 
bedience are  represented  as  falling  mainly  in  this 


TWO  ANCIENT  FAITHS  287 

world,  —  he  who  eats  bread  during  the  Passover 
shortens  his  days. 

A  system  of  restrictions  whose  scope  is  narrower 
than  the  normal  contemporary  life  leaves,  as  all 
history  shows,  the  alternative  between  a  mechanical 
formalism  on  the  one  hand  and  irreligion  on  the 
other.  Among  Roman  Catholics  skepticism  has 
gained  but  little  ground  ;  but  the  artificial  charac- 
ter of  the  attachment  of  a  considerable  and  in- 
creasing proportion  of  its  adherents  is  hardly  open 
to  question.  The  opportunities  of  the  new  life 
lead  the  Jew  to  make  short  work  of  his  tradi- 
tions, and  throw  him  out  of  the  pale  of  religion 
altogether.  The  danger  is  that  the  very  fineness 
which  Judaism  has  created  may  only  make  him  the 
more  open  to  all  the  subtle  undermining  influences 
of  city  life.  In  the  Rorjian  Catholic  Church,  the 
crisis  has  not  yet  come  in  the  contest  between  a 
negative,  protective  rehgious  policy  and  the  ever- 
expanding  life  of  the  people.  When  the  crisis 
does  come,  there  will  no  doubt  appear  a  new  and 
interesting  programme  of  adaptation  to  facts  on  the 
part  of  this  most  flexible  of  historic  institutions. 

In  any  case,  there  is  much  hope  in  the  increas- 
ing activity  among  well-disposed  men  and  women 
of  various  religious  connections  toward  building 
up  the  outer  intrenchments  of  the  spiritual  life  by 


288  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

the  improvement  of  personal,  family,  neighborhood 
and  municipal  conditions.  The  better  understand- 
ing which  arises  between  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
between  Christian  and  Jew,  when  they  work  to- 
gether thus  on  common  ground,  will  give  that 
sense  of  human  unity  out  of  which  vital  forms  of 
religion  in  the  future  must  come. 


North  Union  Station 


Map  to  show  the 

CHIEF  INSTITUTIONS 

and 

MEETING   PLACES 


ORTH    END,  BOSTON. 


•  PUBLIC  HEALTH 

*  AMUSEMENTS    • 
+  CHURCHES  ETC. 


SOCIAL  RECOVERY 


'■"         ^»         -° 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   CHILD    OF   THE    STRANGER 

Crowded  between  narrow  byways  that  run 
nortliwest  from  Hanover  Street  stand  some  half 
dozen  large  brick  buildings  that  perhaps  appeal  to 
a  visitor  as  marking  the  centre  of  public  life  in  the 
North  End.  If  the  stranger  chance  to  be  from 
over  the  sea,  and  about  to  settle  upon  this  populous 
edge  of  the  new  country,  the  first  impression  that 
these  buildings  make  is  justified  by  the  part  they 
later  play  in  the  lives  of  the  children  for  whose  sake 
the  parents  may  have  ventured  to  the  unknown 
land.  Within  them  is  located  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment for  the  local  child  world  —  a  world  more  in 
need  of  special  government  here  than  in  other 
parts  of  the  city,  in  that  its  little  citizens  are  speak- 
ing a  different  tongue,  acquiring  different  habits 
and  daily  developing  different  ideas  from  the 
grown-up  world  to  which  they  are  akin  by  blood. 

The  present  inquiry  as  to  the  public-school  sys- 
tem has  to  do  with  its  local  limitations  and  pecu- 
liarities and  the  special  significance  which  it  has 


290  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

for  children  chiefly  of  foreign  birth  and  wholly  of 
foreign  parentage.  fAt  the  North  End  of  Boston, 
the  public  schools  have  to  deal  with  a  child  popu- 
lation of  which  more  than  ninety  per  cent,  is  of 
Hebrew  or  Italian  blood.  Certainly  half  these 
children  were  born  on  foreign  soil,  while  the  re- 
mainder come  from  homes  scarcely  touched  by 
American  influences,  and  where^he  English  lan- 
guage is  only  imperfectly  known.  J 

The  universally  significant  facts  among  such  a 
school  population  are  only  those  incidental  to  the 
elementary  schools,  and  an  attempt  to  picture  the 
local  school  life  can  hardly  overstate  the  impor- 
tance of  these  grades,  or  paint  their  meaning  to  the 
child  in  too  vivid  colors.  There  is  no  high-school 
building  in  the  schoolhouse  group  that  lies  to  the 
northwest  of  Hanover  Street,  nor  is  there  need  of 
one.  "  From  the  kindergarten  to  the  master's 
class  "  defines  the  entire  school  career  of  a  child 
who,  in  comparison  with  his  fellows,  may  be  looked 
upon  as  having  received  a  thorough  education.  A 
sketch  of  the  years  included  within  these  limits  is 
practically  all  that  is  required  in  an  effort  to  show 
the  relation  between  the  public  school  and  the 
immigrant  child. 

The  goal  of  the  master's  class,  to  which  compara- 
tively few   attain,   is  reached  by  two  converging 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  291 

paths:  by  the  regular  course  of  promotions,  fol- 
lowing the  kindergarten  through  nine  primary  and 
grammar  grades ;  or  by  a  less  well  understood  period 
of  instruction,  known  as  "  ungraded  class  work." 
The  distinctive  peculiarity  of  school  work  at  the 
North  End  is  the  ungraded  class  for  newly  arrived 
foreign  children.  This  is  a  characteristic  neces- 
sity in  a  district  where  a  master  may  say  of  his 
graduating  class,  "  Twenty-seven  out  of  forty-two 
were  born  in  Russia ;  and  from  three  to  five  years 
ago  not  one  of  those  twentj^-seven  could  speak  Eng- 
lish." Another  remark  made  by  the  same  master 
shows  more  fundamentally  the  need  and  nature  of 
ungraded  work  at  the  North  End  :  "  We  have  five 
fresh  from  the  steamer  to-day.  They  go  into  the 
ungraded  classes  for  special  language  work,  and 
they  will  be  pushed  ahead  as  fast  as  possible  toward 
their  proper  grades." 

Pouring  constantly  into  the  ungraded  classes  are 
European  children  of  the  most  impressionable  age, 
whose  first  acquaintance  with  American  life  and 
whose  only  hope  of  a  good  command  of  the  English 
tongue  lie  in  the  public  schools.  Nearly  all  of 
them,  of  course,  have  had  more  or  less  school  train- 
ing in  their  native  language  ;  but,  for  a  time,  they 
are  as  speechless,  for  all  practical  American  pur- 
poses, as  newly  entered  pupils  in  the  Horace  Mann 


292  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

School,  for  deaf  mutes,  at  the  other  end  of  the 
city. 

The  devotion  and  skill  with  which  the  North 
End  teachers  perform  their  task  of  making  the 
dumb  to  speak  strengthen  the  parallel.  Their  suc- 
cess is  astonishing,  even  with  the  average  child; 
while  the  occasional,  phenomenal  results  are  almost 
beyond  belief.  "  Land  on  Saturday,  settle  on 
Sunday,  school  on  Monday,  vote  on  Tuesday"  is  a 
proverb  among  the  teachers ;  and  one  is  inclined  to 
take  the  saying  literally  after  conversing  with  a 
Eussian  girl  sixteen  years  of  age  who,  leaving  the 
steamer  the  first  of  March  without  a  word  of  Eng- 
lish at  her  command,  is  explaining  to  a  visitor  by 
the  middle  of  May  that  her  only  real  difficulty 
in  seventh  grade  work  is  with  the  text-book  of 
United  States  history,  which  seems  to  her  written 
in  another  language  from  the  one  she  is  learning 
to  speak. 

"  And  the  English  these  children  give  us  back," 
says  an  enthusiastic  master,  "  is  our  own  English." 
Enthusiasm  is  found  everywhere  among  the  in- 
structors of  foreign  children,  and  with  it  is  a  cor- 
responding fervor  of  belief  in  the  ability  of  their 
pupils,  especially  the  Hebrews,  who  are  said  to 
''  rush  through  the  grades  as  soon  as  they  get  the 
language." 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  293 

The  process  of  getting  the  language  is  worthy 
of  attention,  particularly  in  its  beginning.  Side 
by  side  in  an  ungraded  class  sit  little  women  of 
seven  or  eight,  miniature  European  peasants  in 
dress  and  bearing,  and  older  girls,  for  whom  a  fort- 
night has  sufficed  almost  to  eliminate  Russian  or 
Italian  peculiarities  of  costume.  These  children  are 
ungraded  as  to  years,  but  all  are  of  one  grade  in 
speechlessness  and  in  eagerness  to  learn  the  strange 
tongue  of  the  new  land.  Their  progress  is  sugges- 
tive of  dawning  intelhgence  in  babies,  and  the  sur- 
prised happiness  of  one  face  after  another,  as  each 
in  her  order  of  quickness  catches  an  idea,  is  inde- 
scribably touching  in  its  almost  infantile  sponta- 
neity. Over  and  over,  in  quiet  pleasant  tones, 
the  teacher  repeats  every-day  words  and  simple 
sentences,  accompanying  them  by  explanatory  ges- 
tui-es,  until  at  last  "  Rise  "  and  "  File  "  and  "  Put 
your  pencil  ^?^  your  desk  "  and  "  Put  your  pencil 
on  your  desk  "  have  accomplished  their  purpose,  and 
the  class  is  ready  for  more  abstract  ideas. 

It  is  not  language  alone  thaf  these  new  little  citir 
zens  acquire  in  the  early  days  of  public-school  life. 
Not  the  least  important  result  of  the  speedy  transi- 
tion from  ship  to  school  may  be  traced  to  the  fact 
that  the  schoolhouse  steps  lead  to  a  practical  know- 
ledge of  law  as  well  as  letters.     "  Fresh  from  the 


294  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

steamer "  is  no  figure  of  speech,  and  the  short 
time  that  elapses  before  the  immigrant  child  be- 
comes a  registered  member  of  the  school  world 
gives  him  little  opportunity  to  fall  into  the  lawless- 
ness that  naturally  attends  a  change  of  environ- 
ment. The  school's  neighborhood  representative, 
the  truant  officer,  does  much,  directly  and  indirectly, 
to  bring  about  this  speedy  enrollment  in  the  blue 
book  of  the  school ;  yet  he  is  not  always  obliged  to 
take  the  initiative.  The  parents'  own  preconceived 
idea,  that  America  means  education,  is  usually  aided 
by  the  quickly  volunteered  information  of  more 
experienced  neighbors  that  the  place  for  children 
is  in  school.  An  interesting  sight  in  the  office  of 
a  North  End  school  is  a  flock  of  frightened  little 
foreigners  under  the  kindly  guardianship  of  an 
Americanized  relative ;  or,  more  pathetic  still, 
shepherded  by  an  equally  frightened,  speechless  mo- 
ther, who  can  make  known  only  by  signs  that  she 
wishes  her  offspring  started  upon  the  right  road. 
Probably  neither  children  nor  parents  have  any 
idea  how  stringent  3nd  far-reaching  is  the  jurisdic- 
tion under  which  they  are  now  coming.  By  means 
of  teachers  and  truant  officer,  the  school  practically 
dictates  the  conduct  of  the  child  during  his  waking 
hours.  The  precision  with  which  the  complicated 
school  machinery  moves,  in  a  district  where  its  ob- 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  295 

stacles  are  of  the  most  unique  and  baffling  descrip- 
tion, is  a  tribute  to  the  imagination,  as  well  as  to 
the  diligence,  of  the  executive  force.  Not  a  child 
shall  be  lost  seems  to  be  the  motto,  —  and  it  is  a 
practically  accomplished  ideal.  Chevan  Panhasky, 
as  occasionally  happens,  in  her  enthusiasm  for 
things  American,  may  elect  between  terms  to  be 
known  henceforth  as  Celia  Smith.  The  school 
does  not  dispute  her  right  even  while  deploring 
her  taste.  Her  disappearance  must  be  accounted 
for,  however,  though  it  mean  weeks  of  effort,  and 
until  Celia  Smith  has  explained  her  identity,  search 
for  the  missing  Panhasky  is  not  given  over. 

Such  is  the  beginning  of  school  life  for  a  large 
part  of  the  children  who  will  quickly  be  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking, and  therefore  the  influential,  resi- 
dents of  the  North  End, — the  more  disciplined, 
and  therefore  the  controlling,  members  of  the 
community.  As  a  general  result  of  these  years 
of  training,  there  is  an  ability  on  the  part  of  the 
children  to  speak  a  fairly  pure  English  tongue 
and  to  understand  a  purer  one  ;  to  comprehend 
the  penalty  of  broken  law,  if  not  to  feel  the  beauty 
of  law  preserved.  A  glance  at  the  dialect  of  some 
realistic  novel  whose  scene  is  laid  in  an  East  Lon- 
don slum  gives  a  vivid  idea  of  the  difference  it 
might  make,  to  both  state  and  individual,  were  these 


296  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

same  little  foreign  people  left  to  acquire  a  street 
vernacular  and  limited  for  life  to  such  a  feeble, 
squalid  vehicle  as  that ;  while  only  a  slight  obser- 
vation of  any  crowded  immigrant  quarter  brings  a 
menacing  conception  of  what  a  future  generation 
would  be  were  it  bred  in  American  freedom  with- 
out American  law. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  path,  to  which  many 
find  their  way  through  the  ungraded  class,  is  the 
master's  class,  with  its  hope  of  the  grammar  school 
diploma.  This,  as  has  been  suggested,  is  the  de- 
finite educational  goal  of  the  children  of  this  quar- 
ter of  the  city.  To  attain  it  is  to  "  graduate,",  an 
achievement  which  ranks  here,  in  popular  regard, 
with  graduation  from  the  high  school  in  another 
district,  or  the  obtaining  of  a  college  degree  in  yet 
more  favored  circles,  —  though  neither  high  school 
nor  college  is  entirely  unknown  or  unsought. 
Each  September,  indeed,  a  surprisingly  large 
number  of  boys,  and  a  handful  of  girls,  go  up  to 
the  high  schools  at  the  South  End,  carrying  their 
grammar  school  diplomas  as  certificates  of  admis- 
sion. Not  infrequently  the  boys  have  in  view 
college  or  professional  training.  That  the  girls 
never  have,  and  that  the  proportion  going  further 
than  the  grammar  school  is  so  small,  is  due,  not 
to  lack  of  ability  or  inclination,  and  not  wholly 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  297 

to  straitened  means,  but  to  the  custom  of  early- 
marriage,  whicLi  is  particularly  strong  among  the 
Hebrews. 

It  seems  truly  unfortunate  that  girls  who  show 
both  talent  and  desire  should  be  denied  the  privilege 
of  higher  studies ;  but  the  more  serious  evil  is 
that  so  few  children,  boys  or  girls,  should  have  the 
training  of  the  entire  nine  grades  of  the  elementary- 
schools.  These  high  school  candidates  are  favored 
representatives  of  an  already  picked  corps,  and  their 
existence  does  not  detract  from  the  statement  that 
the  facts  incidental  to  the  elementary  schools  are 
the  only  ones  of  universal  significance.  The  gradu- 
ating class  of  a  grammar  school  is  a  small  part 
of  the  children  who  entered  some  six  years  before. 
The  law  requires  that  children  between  seven  and 
fourteen  years  of  age  shall  be  in  school ;  but  at 
every  stage  in  the  course  these  immigrant  children, 
so  unevenly  started,  are  attaining  their  sad  ma- 
jority. Where  two  hundred  enter,  only  about 
fifty  graduate.  The  master's  class  ranks  in  school 
nomenclature  as  ninth  grade.  Between  it  and  the 
grade  below  there  is  no  appreciable  diminution  in 
numbers ;  but  between  the  seventh  and  eighth 
grades  the  difference  is  pitifully  great.  Only  about 
half  the  children  who  leave  the  seventh  grade  in 
June  reappear  after  the  long  vacation  to  enter  the 


298  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

eighth  grade.  The  reports  of  the  schools  composed 
largely  of  the  children  of  immigrants  show  approx- 
imately that  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  pupils 
never  reach  the  eighth  grade;  that  a  fraction  of 
this  seventy-five  per  cent.,  moreover,  are  unable 
to  keep  up  in  the  regular  course,  and  are  given 
instruction  in  what  English  educators  call  "  special 
difficulty  classes  "  ;  and  that  of  those  who  do  com- 
plete the  nine  grades,  one  half  the  boys  and  four 
fifths  of  the  girls  do  not  go  further.  Such  statis- 
tics bring  out  clearly  the  vital  meaning  of  the 
elementary  schools  in  districts  like  the  North  End, 
and  the  imperative  need  of  a  curriculum  specifically 
adapted  to  children  who  mus^  get  all  the  educa- 
tional training  they  will  ever  get  in  the  public 
schools  and  before  their  fifteenth  year. 

Pupils  leave  school  for  a  variety  of  reasons.  A 
broad  division  of  these  reasons  might  be  made 
under  the  heads  of  poverty  and  lack  of  interest* 
Instances  of  the  first  in  the  cases  of  pupils  of 
unquestionable  ability  are  many  and  touching. 
To  alter  this  is  a  hope  of  the  future.  The  im- 
mediate concern  is  to  secure  a  school  curriculum 
that  will  remedy  the  second  condition,  and  at  the 
same  time  give  to  those  to  whom  the  first  applies 
the  best  training  the  few  years  admit ;  to  make 
school  life  so  practical  and  attractive  that  an  effort 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  299 

to  keep  the  children  in  school  will  be  made  by  the 
parents  and  will  not  be  resisted  by  the  boys  and 
girls.  The  necessary  routine  of  language,  geo- 
graphy and  arithmetic  is  a  heavy  burden  for  chil- 
dren who  cannot  in  any  way  connect  these  studies 
with  their  home  lives.  Something  is  needed  to 
help  float  the  load,  —  something  that  will  both 
enliven  school  hours  and  bring  them  more  closely 
into  relation  with  the  homes  and  e very-day  expe- 
riences. Various  expedients  are  tried,  and  most 
hopeful  among  them  is  industrial  training  of  differ- 
ent sorts.  In  this  work  the  children  are  happy ; 
the  parents  understand  and  approve  it ;  and  ob- 
servant teachers  state  concerning  it  that  the  actual 
working  power  of  the  pupils  seems  increased  by 
the  relaxation  and  pleasure  of  the  change.  The 
special  importance  of  industrial  training  in  the  im- 
migrant districts  is  emphasized  by  a  glance  at  a 
list  of  parents'  employments,  taken  from  the  records 
of  an  ungraded  class,  —  27  laborers,  1  clerk  in 
bar-room,  3  barbers,  1  dressmaker,  3  tailors,  4 
peddlers,  1  housekeeper,  4  organ  grinders,  1  stone 
cutter,  1  harness  maker,  1  rag  picker,  1  rabbi,  2 
shoemakers,  1  undertaker,  1  clerk,  2  fishermen, 
2  bricklayers,  1  blacksmith,  1  baker,  1  painter,  1 
graved igger,  1  fruit  vender. 
\   "I  am  weary,"   says   Ruskin,   "of  seeing  the 


300  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

subject  of  education  treated  as  if  education  meant 
only  teaching  children  to  write  and  cipher.  The 
real  education,  the  only  education  which  should  be 
compulsory,  means  nothing  of  the  kind  ;  it  means 
teaching  children  to  be  clean,  active,  honest  and 
useful."  Out  of  twenty-five  school  hours  a  week, 
the  time  devoted  to  pursuits  specifically  in  line 
with  the  great  man's  ideal  is  given  as  follows  in 
the  Course  of  Study  for  the  Boston  Grammar 
Schools  published  in  1899  :  — 
•   Moral  training,  one  half  hour  a  week. 

Physical  training  and  recesses,  three  hours  a 
week. 

Manual  training,  two  hours  a  week. 

To  this  should  be  added,  in  a  discussion  of  the 
North  End,  the  time  allowed  in  the  Paul  Revere 
School  for  a  weekly  bath. 

The  new  building  of  this  school  is  a  marked 
result  of  the  increasing  responsibility  the  city 
feels  towards  its  child  population  and  their  special, 
local  needs.  The  school's  spacious  basement  is 
lighted  by  electricity  and  furnished  with  shower 
baths.  Here  six  hundred  little  children  are  bathed 
each  week ;  and  by  one  who  knows  anything  of 
North  End  tenement  houses  the  question  of  the 
necessity  of  public  bathing  facilities  will  not  be 
raised.      Not  long  since  a  kindergarten   teacher 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  301 

had  occasion  to  remove  a  child's  frock  for  the 
purpose  of  trying  on  a  garment.  The  child  was 
found  to  be  completely  encased  in  woolen  rags 
sewed  securely  around  its  body.  Upon  the  teach- 
er's applying  the  scissors  to  some  of  the  stitches, 
the  child  screamed :  "  Don't  do  that,  my  mamma's 
got  me  sewed  up  for  all  winter ! "  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  foreign  mother  there  was  nothing 
reprehensible  in  this,  but  it  is  plain  that  the  con- 
venient sewing-up  system  must  vanish  before  the 
introduction  of  the  public  bath.  It  is  close  by  the 
Paul  Revere  school  that  the  city  has  reserved 
a  lot  of  land  for  one  of  its  public  playgrounds, 
and  in  some  of  the  neighboring  school  buildings 
the  plan  of  leaving  schoolyards  open  for  the  chil- 
dren's use  is  also  being  tried. 

The  North  End  schools  are  fortunate  in  being 
in  close  connection  with  two  philanthropic  enter- 
prises, the  North  End  Union  and  the  North  Ben- 
net  Street  Industrial  School,  and  the  buildings  of 
both  are  so  near  as  practically  to  form  a  part  of  the 
great  pubKc  schoolhouse  group.  Both  these  insti- 
tutions supplement  the  training  of  the  schools  by 
clubs  and  free  classes.  In  the  day  of  its  founding, 
the  North  Bennet  Street  Industrial  School  had  no 
parallel  among  the  public  schools  of  the  city  in  its 
methods.     That  industrial  training  is  now  given 


302  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

throughout  the  city  is  largely  due  to  its  founder, 
Mrs.  Quincy  Shaw,  and  the  noble  example  she 
set  in  its  establishment.  The  Eliot  Grammar 
School  has  not  yet  facilities  for  manual  training, 
but  once  a  week  its  boys  are  sent  down  the  street 
to  the  Industrial  School,  where,  through  Mrs. 
Shaw's  liberality,  they  receive  more  varied  and  ex- 
tensive training  than  is  given  by  the  city.  A 
choice  is  offered  between  modehng,  carpentering, 
printing  and  leather-work,  and  the  boys  are  divided 
about  equally  in  their  tastes.  One  of  the  results 
of  both  these  institutions  is  that  pupils  once  in  the 
day  classes  are  likely  to  follow  up  their  work  after 
business  hours  in  the  evening  classes. 

The  industrial  training  given  in  the  grammar 
school  is  received  with  intelligent  appreciation  by 
the  boys  and  girls  of  the  three  upper  grades.  For 
the  girls  the  term  implies  instruction  in  sewing  and 
cooking.  The  latter  is  perhaps  the  more  popular 
occupation,  and  the  girls  regret  so  keenly  being 
obliged  to  give  it  up  upon  entering  the  master's 
class  that  a  special  arrangement  has  been  made  in 
the  Hancock  School  by  which  the  pupils  of  the  ninth 
grade  are  given  an  opportunity  several  times  dur- 
ing the  year  to  prepare  and  serve  a  dinner  for  the 
teachers.  The  work  that  goes  on  in  the  charming 
upstairs   kitchen  of    the  Hancock    School  really 


TEE  CHILD  OF  THE  STBANGEE  303 

should  be  dignified  by  the  name  Domestic  Sci- 
ence. That  it  implies  something  far  more  serious 
than  even  the  important  art  of  cooking  will  be 
granted  when  it  is  understood  that  there  are  some 
among  the  girls  of  each  successive  class  who,  from 
religious  scruples,  never  taste  what  they  painstak- 
ingly and  happily  prepare ;  and  there  are  many 
others  who  will  eat  only  a  limited  number  of  dishes. 
It  is  the  ways  of  healthful,  happy  homes  that  the 
girls  catch  a  glimpse  of  during  the  two  hours  a 
week  that  for  two  years  of  their  school  life  they 
spend  in  the  upstairs  kitchen.  A  woman  who 
comes  into  unusually  sympathetic  relations  with 
the  daughters  of  immigrants  says,  as  a  result  of 
her  years  of  experience,  that  she  is  convinced  that 
it  is  not  the  acquisition  of  facts  but  cultivation 
that  the  foreign  girls  need  for  their  future  happi- 
ness and  usefulness,  —  correct  ideas  of  life,  and 
freedom  from  superstition,  rather  than  definite 
knowledge  about  trade  winds  and  syntax.  Within 
two  or  three  years  of  leaving  school,  sometimes 
sooner,  these  girls  are  wives  and  mothers.  If  the 
object  of  education  is  to  fit  for  life,  it  seems  hardly 
an  open  question  whether  industrial  training  under 
skilled,  cultivated  direction  does  not  contribute  as 
much  to  the  desired  end  as  the  more  academic 
branches.      One  far-reaching,   desirable    function 


304  AMEBICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

it  certainly  fulfills,  —  that  of  a  connecting  link 
between  school  and  home.  The  girls  can  discuss 
sewing  and  cooking  with  their  mothers  when  they 
have  no  language  to  discuss  trade  winds  and  syn- 
tax ;  and  they  constantly  demonstrate  the  mate- 
rial results  of  their  training  in  a  fashion  highly 
acceptable  to  the  whole  family.  It  does  not  seem 
improbable  that  marriage  might  be  delayed  a  year  or 
two  if  fathers  and  mothers  could  see  that  a  further 
school  course  would  mean  definite  training  for  the 
life  that  is  to  them  the  only  life  a  girl  should  look 
forward  to.  The  question  of  difference  in  ideals 
has  an  important  bearing  upon  any  discussion  of 
the  early  training  that  best  fits  for  life.  The 
daughters  of  Kussian  and  Italian  immigrants  do 
not  look  upon  teaching,  bookkeeping,  stenography 
or  shop-tending  as  aims  of  life.  They  simply  and 
openly  desire  a  sound  mind,  so  far  as  they  under- 
stand it,  within  a  sound  body,  that  they  may  make 
good  wives  and  present  their  husbands  with  healthy 
sons. 

The  mere  fact  of  graduation  is  urged  strenu- 
ously by  the  teachers,  even  when  there  is  no  hope 
of  the  high  school  for  pupils,  because  of  their  belief 
of  the  important  effect  it  has  upon  the  children's 
after-life.  A  grammar  school  diploma,  framed 
and  hanging  upon  the  wall,  confers  academic  dig- 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STE ANGER  305 

iiity  upon  a  home.  The  possession  of  it  entitles 
the  owner  to  various  social  privileges.  One  advan- 
tage that  comes  from  graduation  is  the  right  of 
membership  in  the  old  graduates'  associations. 
There  are  a  number  of  these  at  the  North  and 
West  Ends.  Thus  far  they  have  been  composed 
largely  of  those  who  made  their  homes  in  the  dis- 
trict in  its  more  prosperous  days.  Recent  gradu- 
ates are  becoming  eager  to  join  as  soon  as  they  are 
so  circumstanced  as  to  afford  the  entrance  fee. 
The  associations  hold  occasional  reunions  in  addi- 
tion to  their  business  meetings,  and  they  show  their 
love  for  the  old  school  in  various  practical  ways. 
One  society  supports  a  library  in  the  school  build- 
ing, and  in  addition  to  this  pleasant  aid  to  school 
work,  it  has  recently  added  a  fine  stereopticon,  which 
is  in  constant  use.  Each  school  building  is  a  social 
centre  in  the  chance  which  its  "  public  days " 
afford  for  reunions,  and  it  is  the  pupils  who  have 
achieved  graduation  who  are  apt  to  come  back, 
feeling  sure  of  welcome  and  recognition  from  the 
teachers.  Graduates'  clubs,  made  up  of  members 
of  individual  classes,  are  well-known  features  of 
the  neighborhood.  In  their  organization  and  func- 
tions they  are  a  credit  to  their  schools,  and  they 
show  the  force  of  a  master's  statement  that  the 
ninth  grade  illustrates  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 


306  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

A  study  of  these  yearly  survivors,  their  condi- 
tions and  their  victory  over  conditions  would  be 
intensely  interesting  were  there  time  for  such  an 
examination.  The  members  of  the  graduating  class 
and  the  grade  below  it  hold  their  places,  as  a  rule, 
through  ability  and  force  of  character,  and  not 
infrequently,  it  should  be  noted,  as  a  result  of 
great  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  their  parents.  It 
is  no  easy  matter  for  fathers  and  mothers  limited 
as  to  language  and  educational  traditions,  and  for- 
ever under  the  galling  conditions  of  precarious 
employment,  to  allow  a  boy  or  girl  capable  of  add- 
ing to  the  family  income  to  spend  five  hours  a 
day  in  school  and  one  or  more  in  home  study.  The 
wonder  is  that  it  is  ever  done ;  for  while  the  attain- 
ment of  a  grammar  school  diploma  is  an  honor, 
failure  to  attain  it  is  not  looked  upon  as  a  disgrace. 
To  be  without  it,  in  the  eyes  of  the  parents,  is 
hardly  a  deprivation.  The  children  themselves 
show  independence  and  business  enterprise  in  the 
struggle.  In  the  Eliot  School  alone  three  hundred 
and  fifty  boys  are  licensed  newsboys  and  bootblacks. 
But  it  is  still  likely  that  the  lists  of  graduates  would 
diminish  in  the  face  of  such  obstacles  were  it  not 
for  the  encouragement  of  the  teachers  and  their 
interest  in  individual  pupils.  If  children  show 
ability  they  are  pushed  through  the  grades  as  fast 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STBANGEB  307 

as  can  be  done  conscientiously.  This  is  in  order 
that  they  may  reach  the  eighth  grade  at  least 
before  the  age  limit  is  attained ;  for  at  the  eighth 
grade  begins  a  sort  of  home  stretch  where  chil- 
dren and  parents  have  caught  their  second  breath, 
and  become  able  to  endure  to  the  end. 

The  meaning  of  school  life  to  some  of  those 
who  have  been  thus  hurried  on  may  be  read  in  the 
stirring  autobiographies  that  the  graduating  class 
of  one  school  is  each  year  asked  to  write.  Refu- 
gees from  Russian  persecution  tell  in  eloquent, 
well-chosen  words  personal  experiences  holding  all 
the  elements  of  tragic  drama,  and  they  picture 
vividly  the  contrast  between  the  conditions  of  their 
European  homes  and  the  school  privileges  of  Amer- 
ica. The  intelligent  appreciation  and  the  fre- 
quent literary  merit  of  these  records  are  among 
the  things  that  place  the  foreign  poor  and  their  pos- 
sibilities in  an  entirely  new  light,  and  arouse  the 
devotion  and  enthusiasm  of  those  who  come  in  con- 
tact with  them  in  the  schools.  In  a  survey  of  the 
immigrant  quarter  of  the  city,  where  the  combi- 
nation of  foreign  habits  and  extreme  poverty  results 
in  such  deplorable  conditions,  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  dwelling  in  the  midst  of  these  conditions 
there  are  those  capable  of  rising  above  them,  not 
only  from  sporadic  ability,  but  also  by  reason  of 


308  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

naturally  inherited  powers.  Tlie  determination  that 
has  kept  Judea  a  name  for  two  thousand  years,  the 
fire  that  made  Italy  one  and  free,  are  in  our  North 
End  schools  being  developed  and  directed  by  what 
the  City  provides.  Side  by  side  with  sluggish 
Sicily  sits  eloquent,  ambitious  Lombardy;  while 
among  the  Hebrew  children  are  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  men  of  learning,  whom  only  a  foreign 
tongue  keeps  in  such  narrow  circumstances.  Thus 
it  is  not  surprising  that  there  is  real  ability  among 
the  holders  of  the  grammar  school  diplomas,  and 
it  seems  beyond  question  that  their  after-lives  jus- 
tify the  effort  of  the  attainment.  "  The  Jewish 
boys  will  take  from  a  third  to  a  half  of  our  prizes 
right  along,"  writes  an  English  High  School 
teacher.  "  Out  of  thirty  Franklin  medals  awarded 
in  1897,  1898,  1899,  five  were  awarded  to  boys 
from  the  Eliot  School  at  the  North  End.  The 
results  of  the  awarding  of  Franklin  medals  in  June, 
1900,  show  that  five  of  the  ten  were  given  to 
Jewish  boys  from  the  North  and  West  Ends."  The 
prize  winners  do  not  all  stop  here.  On  the  rolls  of 
the  law  and  medical  schools  of  Boston  and  Cam- 
bridge are  increasingly  recorded  Russian  and  Italian 
names  ;  while  already  in  the  city  there  are  men  of 
foreign  birth  and  North  End  breeding  who  have 
made    their    way  through   high    school    and    uni- 


THE  CHILD   OF  THE  STRANGER  309 

versity,  and  are  now  practising  their  professions 
close  by  the  schools  from  which  they  received  their 
first  diplomas. 

From  such  statements  as  these,  and  from  a  visit 
to  the  schools,  one  might  be  led  to  suppose  that 
the  shifting  of  population  has  left  the  district  en- 
tirely Continental  in  its  racial  character.  This 
is  not  quite  true.  Though  the  Irish  race  is  being 
pushed  out  of  its  old  home  by  the  new  immigrants, 
the  change  has  not  taken  place  as  entirely  as  the 
appearance  of  the  public  schools  would  indicate. 
Some  twelve  hundred  children,  of  whom  the  larger 
part  are  of  Irish  birth  or  descent,  are  cared  for  by 
the  parochial  school  system  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  St.  Mary's  School,  in  the  old  armory 
building  on  Endicott  Street,  numbers  630  pupils; 
St.  Stephen's  School  has  550.  The  schools  accom- 
modate both  boys  and  girls,  though  they  are  not 
coeducational  in  their  plan.  The  instructors  are  all 
women.  The  lady  in  charge,  and  the  teachers 
under  whom  the  girls  are  placed,  are  sisters  of  a 
religious  order.  The  boys  are  in  charge  of  lay 
teachers,  graduates  of  church  schools.  In  both 
these  schools  the  preference  is  given  to  Irish  chil- 
dren. St.  Stephen's  school  is  still  almost  ex- 
clusively Celtic,  but  St.  Mary's  is  feeling  the 
change  in  population,  and  dark   Italian  faces  are 


310  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

thickly  sprinkled  among  the  fairer  children  of 
the  earlier  inhabitants.  Each  parochial  school  in- 
cludes the  regulation  nine  primary  and  grammar 
grades,  and  a  "  receiving  class "  somewhat  cor- 
responding to  the  public  kindergarten.  For  un- 
graded classes  they  have  as  yet  no  need.  St. 
Stephen's  school  has  an  additional  three  years' 
course  of  high  school  work  for  girls.  The  gradu- 
ating class  of  the  grammar  school  consists  of  about 
fifteen  boys  and  girls. 

The  grade  work  of  the  parochial  schools  is  very 
similar  to  that  of  the  public  schools,  though  from 
lack  of  funds  it  is  necessarily  limited  to  bare  essen- 
tials. The  diplomas  of  both  schools  admit  boys 
to  Boston  College,  a  Jesuit  institution,  but  not 
to  the  public  high  schools.  Boys  who  intend  to  go 
further  are  preparing  for  the  most  part  to  enter 
the  former  institution,  at  which  St.  Mary's  school 
has  four  scholarships.  Alike  as  the  public  schools 
and  the  church  schools  are  in  many  ways,  their 
dissimilarities  are  yet  marked  and  interesting. 
Church  symbols  and  ecclesiastical  uniform,  in  the 
parochial  schools,  everywhere  lend  their  own  subtle 
charm  and  influence  to  the  modern  schoolroom 
atmosphere.  In  the  daily  work,  certainly  as  much 
time  as  the  public  schools  allow  for  their  nature  study 
and  industrial  work  —  both  of  which  the  parochial 


THE  CHILD   OF  THE  STRANGER  311 

school  is  obliged  to  forego  —  is  taken  up  in  the 
lines  that  specially  distinguish  the  parochial  school 
system,  —  religious  exercises  and  instruction.  One 
half  hour  of  religious  instruction  is  given  each 
day.  School  sessions  open  and  close  with  devo- 
tional exercises.  Every  half  hour,  at  St.  Mary's 
school,  little  heads  are  dropped  for  a  moment  of 
prayer.  The  books  used  are  partly  those  of  the 
public  schools ;  but  some  are,  of  course,  special  in 
their  nature.  The  school  reader  is  markedly  eccle- 
siastical in  its  tone. 

One  aspect  of  the  public  school  system  of  the 
North  End  is  too  interesting  to  be  passed  over, 
though  it  has  little  connection  with  the  child  life 
of  the  district,  —  and  that  is  the  work  of  the  even- 
ing classes.  Very  few  children  attend.  The  six 
hundred  pupils  who  meet  in  the  Eliot  School  for  five 
months  in  the  year  are  mostly  men  over  eighteen 
years  of  age,  recent  immigrants  who  come  to  school 
to  learn  the  language.  The  plan  is  practically  that 
of  the  ungraded  classes  already  described.  The 
Italians  are  the  predominating  race ;  next  to  them 
come  the  Kussian  Jews.  Between  the  adult  pupils 
of  these  two  races  there  exists  the  most  childish 
and  unreasonable  antagonism,  which  at  times  be- 
comes so  violent  in  its  expression  that  it  is  not 
feasible  for  them  to  mix  in  class  work.     Offense 


312  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

is  taken  upon  the  slightest  occasion.  The  oppro- 
brious epithets  of  "  Dago  "  and  "  Sheeny  "  are 
apparently  the  earliest  and  easiest  of  English 
words.  A  class  of  Italians  is  said,  not  long  since, 
to  have  got  into  such  an  uproar  that  the  pre- 
sence of  the  head  master  was  necessary  to  quell 
the  incipient  riot.  The  teacher,  a  man  of  German 
extraction,  proved  unequal  to  the  emergency,  and 
was  ignorant  of  the  origin  of  the  outbreak.  When 
quiet  had  been  restored,  and  inquiries  were  being 
made,  the  class  insisted,  in  the  face  of  the  Ger- 
man's protestations,  that  he  had  called  them 
"  Dagos."  After  much  discussion  the  mystery 
was  cleared  up.  The  teacher,  in  course  of  in- 
struction, had  repeated  the  familiar  conjugation  of 
"  to  go."  His  Teutonic  accent  had  transformed  the 
innocent  plural  into  the  unfortunate  sounds  of 
"  We  go,  you  go,  Dago,''^  and  his  class,  to  a  man, 
had  furiously  resented  the  insult. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  children  of  the  day 
schools,  the  Hebrews  are  far  cleverer  with  books 
than  the  Italians,  and  do  more  advanced  work. 
With  either  race  considerable  determination  is 
required  to  face  the  discomforts  attendant  upon 
evening  school  instruction.  The  session  begins 
at  7.30.  Most  of  the  men  come  direct  from 
work,  thus  going  without  their  suppers  tiU  half 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  313 

past  nine.  The  rooms  are  close  and  crowded ; 
the  teaching  force,  though  of  excellent  quality,  is 
inadequate  as  to  numbers;  and  the  men,  some- 
times gray-headed,  and  as  often  as  not  middle-aged, 
are  painfully  squeezed  between  seats  and  desks 
planned  for  children  anywhere  from  nine  to  fifteen 
years  of  age. 

Quite  the  most  interesting  class  in  the  building 
is  a  roomful  of  Greeks,  —  strong,  good-looking 
young  fellows,  most  of  whom  have  received  a  fair 
education  in  their  own  country.  Some  among 
them  are  university  graduates.  Two  years  ago 
the  Greek  class  chanced  to  be  made  up  of  fifty 
young  Spartans.  Now  the  membership  is  from 
various  parts  of  Greece.  The  distinction  of  the 
class  lies  in  its  teacher,  —  a  young  Greek  who  has 
been  several  years  in  this  country  and  has  volun- 
teered his  services  to  his  countrymen  as  instructor 
in  the  language  in  which  he  has  become  fluent 
himself.  The  class  is  conducted  in  good  modern 
Greek,  used  as  a  medium  of  instruction  in  Eng- 
lish. Most  of  these  men  are  fruit  venders  and, 
except  for  a  few  months  in  the  winter,  are  roaming 
about  the  country  in  various  capacities  connected 
with  the  fruit  trade. 

The  importance  of  making  still  further  use  of 
ample  school  buildings,  situated  in  such  a  densely 


814  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

inhabited  district,  lias  for  a  long  time  been  keenly 
felt  by  the  North  End  teachers.  One  master,  with 
a  number  of  his  assistants,  has  formed  a  corps  of 
instruction,  serving  without  pay,  to  meet  in  the 
evening  the  more  advanced  day  school  pupils 
and  assist  them  with  the  preparation  of  their 
lessons  and  in  other  ways.  Pupils  who  wish  only 
to  come  and  read  by  themselves  are  encouraged 
to  do  so.  During  the  latter  part  of  last  winter 
the  North  End  was  one  of  the  two  sections  of  the 
city  in  which  the  School  Board  began  a  new  and 
admirable  experiment  in  the  way  of  making  the 
schoolhouse  a  centre  for  evening  instruction  in 
certain  interesting  forms  of  handicraft  as  well  as 
for  popular  lectures  and  various  forms  of  social 
recreation.'^ 

The  possible  significance  of  an  ideal  school  life 
perfectly  adapted  to  the  needs  of  a  locality  cannot 
be  overestimated;  the  actual  significance  of  any 
school  life  is  great  and,  with  rare  exceptions,  im- 
plies happiness  and  growth.  These  are  general 
truths,  and  their  force  is  increased  when  applied  to 
children  for  whom  school  is  not  simply  the  most 
important  interest,  but  usually  the  only  daily  in- 
terest representing  high  ideals  and  development. 
It  is  too  much  to  expect  of  youth  that  it  will  fully 
appreciate  its  privileges.     Yet  it  is  clear  to  a  care- 

^  The  board  has  also  begun  to  provide  vacation  schools. 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  315 

ful  observer  that  school  life  is  on  the  whole  en- 
joyed, notwithstanding  much  adult  misapprehension, 
which  too  often  expresses  itself  in  undiscriminating 
and  sweeping  criticism.  Just  as  all  life  has  its 
dreary  spots,  so  school  life  is  not  exempt.  A  com- 
parison of  the  mere  creature  comforts  of  the 
schoolroom  with  the  average  home  of  the  poorer 
districts,  an  acquaintance  with  the  attractive  de- 
vices used  by  teachers  to  lighten  the  burden  of  the 
elementary  studies,  and  especially  an  intelligent 
appreciation  of  the  spirit  and  skill  of  the  in- 
structors, must  bring  any  fair  mind  to  the  convic- 
tion that  the  public  school,  with  all  its  defects,  is 
the  happiest,  most  hopeful  part  of  child  existence 
in  the  North  End.  The  discouraging  statements 
of  truancy  may  be  urged  against  this  position. 
The  question  of  truancy,  however,  has  many  sides. 
The  line  between  culpable  and  excusable  absence 
is  hard  to  draw,  and  often  confirmed  truancy  is  a 
habit  resulting  from  repeated  discouragements  that 
lie  neither  at  the  door  of  the  school  nor  at  that  of 
the  pupil.  A  drunken  mother,  a  dying  baby  sister, 
a  chance  for  work  compelling  both  parents  to  be 
away  from  home  and  throwing  the  care  of  some 
haK  dozen  younger  children  upon  the  shoulders  of 
a  boy  or  girl  of  twelve,  —  these  are  conditions, 
reported  by  the  truant  officer,  that  force  a  teacher 


316  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

into  reluctant  charity  for  even  such  flagrant  of- 
fenders as  truants,  and  cause  her  to  feel  that  too 
harsh  reproof  may  be  outraging  a  child's  finest 
instincts. 

Children  of  the  school  age  are  profoundly  af- 
fected by  imagination  and  ambition.  The  school 
appeals  to  both  these  qualities,  though  more  suc- 
cessfully, as  yet,  to  the  latter.  The  spirit  of  emu- 
lation is  strong  in  the  public  schools,  and  while 
it  occasionally  may  be  forced  to  excess,  its  general 
results  are  good  and  productive  of  sound  growth. 
Children  value  the  visible  symbol  of  success,  and  the 
ingenious  teacher  takes  advantage  of  this  feeling 
The  position  of  monitor,  even  though  the  duty  im- 
plied be  nothing  more  than  sharpening  pencils  ; 
the  possession  of  the  little  flag,  loaned  to  the  line 
that  goes  through  the  gymnastic  exercises  with  the 
most  military  precision,  —  such  distinctions  as  these 
are  stimulating  in  possibility  and  give  much  joy 
when  attained.  To  be  head  boy  of  the  fourth  or 
fifth  grade  is  an  honor  as  keenly  appreciated  as 
municipal  preferment  of  a  later  day.  To  hold 
two  hundred  fellow  pupils  spellbound  while  one 
thunders  the  speech  of  John  Adams  from  the  plat- 
form, with  only  a  suggestion  of  Italy  in  one's  ac- 
cents, is  j)erhaps  as  intoxicating  as  any  success  of 
after  life.     Moreover,  it  is  an  incentive  to  manly 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  317 

bearing  to  file  in  and  out,  upstairs  and  down,  a  big 
brick  building  several  times  a  day  feeling  that  the 
eyes  of  great  men  are  upon  you,  as  master  and 
assistants  watch  your  progress  and  note  your  pos- 
sible forgetf ulness  to  doff  your  cap. 

Such  influences  as  these  are  calculated  to  work 
toward  manliness  and  patriotism,  though  just  here 
lurks  a  possible  defect  of  public  school  education 
—  one  that  must  be  recognized  to  be  averted. 
"  You  taught  me  language,"  mocks  Caliban  at  his 
master,  "  and  my  profit  on't  is,  I  know  how  to 
curse."  The  patriot  is  preceded  by  "  Young 
America"  in  the  little  citizen's  development.  It 
will  depend  much  upon  the  work  of  the  elementary 
schools  whether  Americanism  stops  with  unprinci- 
pled partisanship  and  bombastic  jingoism,  as  em- 
bodied in  ward  politics,  or  develops  into  genuine, 
intelligent  love  of  country.  Certainly  the  change 
which  comes  over  the  children  is  a  swift  and  ap- 
parently spontaneous  one.  A  little  girl  of  foreign 
birth  and  stammering  tongue,  in  one  of  the  lower 
grades,  tells  an  English  visitor  that  the  beautiful 
portrait  of  the  Father  of  his  Country,  hanging 
upon  the  schoolroom  wall,  is  Buffalo  Bill.  This  is 
the  beginning.  A  few  grades  higher  a  group  of 
boys  of  foreign  birth  are  celebrating  Washing- 
ton's birthday.      In  mimic  scene  they  reproduce 


318  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCJESS 

the  proceedings  of  the  last  Continental  Congress, 
statesman  after  statesman  answering  as  his  name 
is  called.  The  gentleman  from  Virginia  delivers 
himself  of  his  great  utterances,  hardly  able  to 
await  his  turn ;  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania 
protests  in  vain ;  all  at  last  agree  vehemently  to 
hang  together  or  to  hang  separately,  and  they  affix 
their  names  to  an  imaginary  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, their  audience  cheering  the  while  with 
excitement  and  joining  with  the  patriots  later  in 
singing  fervently  and  unquestioningly  "Land  where 
our  fathers  died." 

It  is  deliberate  choice  on  the  part  of  both  boys 
and  girls  to  ignore  their  foreign  origin.  They  are 
American,  and  at  times  disappointingly  Ameri- 
can. Their  very  names  become  unlovely  to  their 
Anglicized  ears,  and  the  result  is  often  a  bewilder- 
ing change  that  asks  neither  the  advice  of  elders 
nor  the  consent  of  the  law.  Their  taste  in  amuse- 
ments undergoes  a  similar  change.  Should  the 
student  of  comparative  folk-lore  pursue  his  re- 
searches in  the  North  End,  he  would  be  met  by  the 
familiar  strains  of  "  Sally  Waters,"  and  he  would 
find  the  polyglot  Russian  boys  preferring  to  dis- 
cuss "  craps  "  in  English,  rather  than  to  conduct 
some  European  game  in  their  inherited  Yiddish  or 
Slavic  tongues.     If  a  dramatic  club  is  formed,  the 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  STRANGER  319 

children  clioose  American  plays;  and  in  all  en- 
tertainments their  national  airs  give  way  to  the 
street  songs  of  the  city  and  the  patriotic  hymns  of 
the  school.  The  Hebrews  have  had  no  country ; 
the  Italians  have  found  a  better  one  ;  the  new 
land  is  large  enough  for  both :  and  while  Hebrews 
affiliate  with  Hebrews  and  Italians  with  Italians, 
there  seems  to  be  no  recognized  antagonism  be- 
tween them  more  serious  than  a  strong  feeling  of 
class  superiority  on  the  part  of  each  racer) 

Such  a  state  of  things  during  school  life  is 
bound  to  have  its  influence  upon  future  conditions, 
the  more  so  because  the  direct  influence  of  the 
elementary  schools  is  not  soon  outgrown.  Even 
to  the  boys  and  girls  who  go  higher,  the  gram- 
mar school  remains  the  most  tangible  object  of 
affectionate  loyalty.  Children  cannot  spend  from 
five  to  ten  years  in  one  locality,  with  one  set  of 
interests,  under  leaders  better  known  and  of  more 
immediate  importance  than  the  President  and  his 
Cabinet,  without  strong  ties  being  formed;  and 
these  ties,  as  the  school  course  nears  its  end,  are 
made  closer  by  charming  devices.  The  story  of 
the  master's  class  is  a  tale  by  itself.  Boys  and 
girls  who  reach  that  stage  of  advancement,  who 
go  through  the  impressive  ceremonies  of  gradu- 
ation, who  leave  the  big  brick  schoolhouse  carrying 


320  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

a  grammar  school  diploma,  take  out  into  tlie  world 
not  only  tlie  sense  of  dignity  that  comes  from 
attainment,  and  from  possession  of  the  rudiments 
of  knowledge,  but  also  sentiments,  memories  and 
traditions,  enriched  by  a  consciousness  of  warm 
and  enduring  friendship  with  masters  and  teachers, 
which  deepen  as  the  years  go  by. 


Map  to  show  the 

CHIEF  INSTITUTIONS 

and 

MEETING    PLACES 

in  the 
WEST   END,  BOSTON. 


•  PUBLIC  HEALTH 

•  AMUSEMENTS 
+   CHURCHES  ETC, 
-*  SCHOOLS 

■    SOCIAL  RECOVERY 


Aifloclated  Chan 


CHAPTER  XI 

COMMUNITY    OF    INTEREST 

Philanthropy,  as  it  is  now  understood,  must 
work  with  rather  than  for  those  whom  it  would 
help.  Defective  parts  of  human  society  can  never 
be  repaired  from  without  like  parts  of  a  broken 
machine ;  they  must  share  actively  in  working  out 
their  own  salvation.  On  the  other  hand,  any  part 
of  society  that  needs  regeneration  is  little  likely  to 
accomplish  the  task  by  itself.  Social  reform,  to  be 
in  the  highest  degree  sound  and  permanent,  must 
spring  from  the  cooperation  of  all  classes.  Yet 
nearly  all  efforts  at  social  reform  lean  to  one  side  or 
the  other.  They  are  predominantly  either  exer- 
tions of  certain  public-spirited  individuals  in  be- 
half of  others,  or  else  spontaneous  unaided  efforts 
of  the  mass  in  its  own  interest.  In  a  few  cases  — 
and  here  lie  the  greatest  possibilities  —  the  two 
elements  are  combined  more  equally. 

Enterprises  designed  to  secure  and  maintain  the 
indispensable  conditions  of  a  wholesome  life,  with- 
out which  a  person  can  hardly  be  expected  to  stand 


322  AMERICANS  IN  PEOCESS 

on  his  own  feet,  are  almost  inevitably  of  the  first  sort 
—  efforts  for  people.  They  may  fairly  be  called 
remedial,  in  that  they  strive  for  a  state  of  social 
health  in  which  all  individuals  shall  be  capable  of 
self -direction  and  self-support.  Not  only  the  ordi- 
nary material  relief  agencies,  but  those  providing 
medical  aid,  care  of  children  and  proper  housing 
conditions  are  of  this  kind. 

f  The  spontaneous  form  is  seen  in  the  effort  to 
satisfy  sometimes  widespread  desires,  sometimes 
merely  private,  local  wants.  Such  are  trade  imions, 
social  clubs,  patriotic  orders  among  the  Italians, 
benefit  orders  and  Zionism  among  the  Jews. 

The  third  form,  the  cooperative,  finding  its  op- 
portunity after  the  remedial  has  supplied  the  abso- 
lute essentials,  and  reaching  out  with  intelligent 
sympathy  to  all  sorts  of  popular  association,  en- 
deavors to  lead  to  higher  levels  of  thought  and  life. 
It  includes,  therefore,  the  church,  the  school,  pri- 
vately established  educational  experiments  and  the 
social  settlement  with  its  varied  programme  of  local 
improvement. 

This  classification  implies  no  judgment.  The 
three  classes  are  not  three  levels,  one  above  an- 
other; they  simply  represent  different  kinds  of 
work  demanded  by  different  circumstances.  An 
enterprise  in  any  one  of  the  three  divisions  may 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEBEST  323 

do  really  constructive  work  in  the  sense  of  achiev- 
ing some  fresh  adaptation  of  the  community's  means 
to  its  needs,  of  making  some  distinct  gain,  more  or 
less  permanent,  in  guiding  social  energy  toward 
the  accomplishment  of  useful  social  ends.  Never- 
theless, the  most  effective  philanthropic  work  is 
that  directed  by  disinterested  intelligence  which 
seeks  the  cooperation  of  those  to  be  helped. 

In  districts  like  the  North  and  West  Ends,  where 
a  large  proportion  of  the  population  is  foreign  in 
habits  of  life  and  thought,  even  when  not  in  birth, 
and  quite  unacquainted  with  the  ideas  of  modern 
democracy,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  most  of  the 
social  effort  should  come  from  without.  The  im- 
migrant from  Russia  or  Italy,  accustomed  to  the 
tyranny  of  the  Czar's  police  or  to  the  exactions 
of  the  tax-gatherer,  naturally  devotes  aU  his  ener- 
gies toward  making  some  place  for  himself  and  his 
family  in  the  whirl  of  new  life  into  which  he  has 
plunged.  Had  he  the  aptitude  for  concern  about 
the  common  welfare,  he  lacks  the  time.  Further- 
more, the  idea  of  his  having  any  influence  upon  the 
conduct  of  public  affairs  is  bewilderingly  novel; 
the  possibility,  too,  of  combining  with  his  neigh- 
bors even  for  purely  private  purposes  is  a  privilege 
not  at  once  appreciated.  Remedial  agencies,  there- 
fore —  effort  of  outsiders  for  the  district  —  have 


324  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

the  most  imposing  equipment  and  present  the  great- 
est array  of  activities.  Since  the  needs  to  which 
they  minister  are  for  the  most  part  concrete  and 
easily  distinguished,  the  methods  of  dealing  with 
them  are  correspondingly  well  reasoned  out  and 
higlily  developed. 

It  happens  that  in  a  single  building  in  the  West 
End  most  of  the  large  relief-giving  organizations 
of  the  city,  both  public  and  private,  have  their 
headquarters.  The  Charity  Building  on  Chardon 
Street,  under  the  management  of  the  Overseers  of 
the  Poor,  furnishes  offices  to  some  fifteen  charitable 
societies,  rent  free,  except  that  they  share  the  run- 
ning expenses  of  the  building. 

The  municipal  provision  for  poor  relief  is  in 
the  hands  of  two  boards,  —  the  Overseers  of  the 
Poor,  who  have  charge  of  outdoor  relief  ^  and  tem- 
porary lodging  and  meals,  and  the  Pauper  Insti- 
tutions Trustees,  controlling  the  two  almshouses. 
The  outdoor  relief  of  the  Overseers  is  intended  only 
to  furnish  partial  support ;  the  entirely  depend- 
ent are  cared  for  by  the  Pauper  Institutions.  In 
the  last  twenty-five  years,  though  there  has  been  a 
slight  increase  in  the  total  amount  of  outdoor  re- 
lief, the  number  of  families  aided  has  been  reduced 

^  Outdoor  relief  is  aid  furnished  to  families  in  their  homes,  in 
distinction  from  the  indoor  relief  of  the  almshouses. 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  325 

by  one  half,  thus  doubling  the  average  amount  per 
family.  The  inference  is  that  each  family  receives 
more  effective  treatment  than  formerly.  The 
Overseers  also  have  the  administration  of  private 
trust  funds  for  various  designated  purposes,  amount- 
ing to  three  quarters  of  a  million  dollars.  Under 
the  direction  of  the  Overseers,  too,  the  Tempo- 
rary Home  on  Chardon  Street  and  the  Wayfarers' 
Lodge  on  Hawkins  Street  furnish  for  short  periods 
shelter  and  food,  —  the  one  to  women  and  chil- 
dren, the  other  to  men.  The  women  perform  the 
household  duties  of  the  Home,  while  the  men  work 
in  a  woody ard.  It  is  upwards  of  twenty  years 
ago  that  Boston  did  away  with  the  old  system 
of  giving  temporary  lodging  in  police  stations. 
At  that  time  some  60,000  men  sought  such  lodg- 
ing in  the  course  of  a  year ;  now,  owing  to  the 
increasingly  strict  rules  of  the  Lodge  in  the  mat- 
ter of  cleanliness  and  sanitation,  and  its  steady 
insistence  on  the  work  equivalent  for  lodging  and 
meals,  the  number  of  tramps  has  greatly  dimin- 
ished. A  fair  proportion  of  those  who  come  to  the 
Lodge  are  young  or  middle-aged  able-bodied  men, 
neither  professionally  vagrant  nor  vicious,  but 
moderately  able  workmen.  Industrial  disturbances 
over  a  wide  area  are  felt  in  the  fluctuation  of  num- 
bers at  the  Lodge. 


326  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

If  all  the  private  relief  agencies  including  the 
city  in  their  scope  were  to  be  enumerated  in  these 
pages,  this  chapter  would  be  converted  into  a  di- 
rectory ;  for  more  nearly  than  any  other  American 
city,  Boston  resembles  London  in  inheriting  from 
the  past  a  legacy  of  charitable  societies.  Out  of 
the  long  list  a  few  accomplish  the  most  of  what  is 
done,  especially  in  the  North  and  West  Ends  :  the 
Associated  Charities  and  the  Provident  Associa- 
tion, the  Federation  of  Jewish  Charities,  the  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul,  and  several  smaller  societies 
which  devote  themselves  to  the  needy  of  a  partic- 
ular race  or  creed.  Some  of  these  aim  to  be  more 
than  relief  dispensers,  and  endeavor,  by  getting  at 
the  main  causes  of  need,  to  effect  a  permanent 
remedy. 

(  The  Associated  Charities  organization,  which 
now  has  twenty-five  years  of  activity  behind  it,  de- 
clares its  main  objects  to  be  "  to  raise  the  needy 
above  the  need  of  relief,  prevent  begging  and  im- 
position and  diminish  pauperism.".  To  further 
these  ends  it  strives  "  to  secure  the  concurrent  and 
harmonious  action  of  the  different  charities  in  Bos- 

'"ton,"  and  "  to  encourage  thrift,  self-dependence 
and  industry  through  friendly  intercourse,  advice 
and  sympathy.")  In  effect,  the  society  is  a  clear- 
ing-house, referring  cases  to  the  appropriate  special 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  327 

agency  or,  if  none  such  is  available,  itself  assuming 
charge.  As  an  organization  it  furnishes  no  direct 
relief,  but  procures  it,  when  necessary,  from  others. 
Its  mechanism  is  well  known :  the  city  is  divided 
into  districts,  each  of  which  is  cared  for  by  a  paid 
agent  in  cooperation  with  a  group  of  people  willing 
to  do  what  they  can  in  the  way  of  personal  service. 
The  agent  does  most  of  the  investigating  and 
executive  work,  while  the  volunteers  undertake  the 
friendly  visiting.  The  negative  objects  at  which 
the  society  aims  are  of  course  less  difficult  of  accom- 
plishment than  the  positive:  it  is  much  easier  to 
"  prevent  begging  and  imposition  "  and,  to  a  less  ex- 
tent, to  prevent  the  duplication  of  effort  than  "  to 
raise  the  needy  above  the  need  of  relief  "  and  "  to 
diminish  pauperism."  Accordingly,  the  society 
has  been  the  more  conspicuously  successful  in  the 
former  tasks.  Four  of  its  conferences  share  the 
responsibility  of  the  North  and  West  Ends.  Con- 
ference VI.  cares  for  the  territory  lying  north  of 
Prince  Street  and  east  of  Salem  and  Hanover  streets. 
Hence  its  work  is  largely  among  the  Italians.  Con- 
ferences VII.  and  VIII.  include  within  their  districts 
those  parts  of  the  North  and  West  Ends  which 
constitute  the  Jewish  quarter,  and  Conference  IX. 
presides  over  the  section  where  is  congregated  prac- 
tically aU  the  Negro  population  of  the  West  End. 


328  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

The  Society  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  is  the  great 
Roman  Catholic  relief -giving  agency.  It  is  repre- 
sented at  the  North  End  by  conferences  at  St. 
Mary's,  St.  Stephen's  and  the  Sacred  Heart  of 
Jesus,  and  at  the  West  End  by  a  conference  at 
St.  Joseph's.  Like  the  Associated  Charities,  this 
organization  lays  considerable  stress  on  friendly 
visiting. 

The  Federation  of  Jewish  Charities  includes 
the  Hebrew  Benevolent  Association,  the  Leopold 
Morse  Home,  a  free  emplojrment  bureau  and  sev- 
eral other  societies  with  special  objects.  For 
newly  arrived  Jewish  immigrants  the  Baron  de 
Hirsch  fund  makes  provision.  This  fund  may  be 
devoted  to  trad^  instruction,  establishing  men  in 
business,  forwarding  families  to  friends  or  to  where 
employment  may  be  secured,  or,  in  case  of  inca- 
pacity for  self-support,  to  returning  them  to  Eu- 
rope. A  home  on  Cooper  Street  affords  tempo- 
rary shelter.  The  Hebrew  Benevolent  Society  aids 
those  who  have  been  in  this  country  for  more 
than  a  year.  Perhaps  three  fourths  of  its  work  is 
done  in  the  North  and  West  Ends,  and  most  of 
the  remainder  in  the  South  End.  As  compared 
with  the  Associated  Charities,  it  is  more  of  a 
relief -giving  organization.  Its  policy  may  be  de- 
scribed as  that  of  giving  relief  in  such  a  way  as  to 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  829 

prevent  further  necessity  for  relief  ;  it  provides  for 
whatever  subsidy  may  set  breadwinners  upon  their 
feet,  —  temporary  removal  of  children,  temporary 
relief  or  transportation  to  another  place  where 
work  is  to  be  obtained,  —  while  the  Associated 
Charities  lays  the  stress  upon  personal  influence. 

The  remainder  of  the  agencies  make  it  their 
chief  business  to  dispense  material  relief,  for  the 
most  part  visiting  only  enough  to  guard  against 
fraud.  The  various  churches,  of  course,  also  carry 
on  more  or  less  desultory  work  of  this  kind. 

Among  the  larger  organizations  there  is  consid- 
erable combined  effort  and  division  of  labor.  The 
Overseers  care  for  those  in  chronic  poverty ;  the 
Associated  Charities  for  those  who  show  some 
prospect  of  getting  upon  their  own  feet ;  the  Pro- 
vident, the  Hebrew  Benevolent  and  others,  often 
at  the  request  of  the  Associated  Charities,  supply 
temporary  support ;  the  Jewish  Federation  and  St. 
Vincent's  Society,  as  far  as  they  can,  care  for  their 
special  constituencies.  The  information  possessed 
by  each  is  at  the  service  of  the  others. 

The  experience  of  these  societies  in  dealing  with 
the  conditions  that  confront  them  throughout  the 
city  leads  one  to  look  to  them  for  certain  facts 
which  indicate  the  part  taken  by  the  North  and 
West  Ends  in  the  city's  problem  of  poverty.     No 


330  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

complete  statement  can  be  made,  but  from  the  few 
available  records  of  the  leading  societies  some  bints 
may  be  gleaned. 

Together  the  two  sections  contain  about  11  per 
cent,  of  Boston's  population.  From  them  the  Long 
Island  Almshouse,  which  has  six  sevenths  of  the 
city's  indoor  paupers,  draws  18  per  cent,  of  its  in- 
mates ;  of  the  persons  aided  by  the  Society  of  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul,  12  per  cent,  live  in  these  districts 
and  receive  13  per  cent,  of  the  relief ;  the  Provi- 
dent Association  distributes  16  per  cent,  of  its  coal 
and  groceries  here ;  and  the  Associated  Charities 
for  five  or  more  years  has  found  30  per  cent,  of 
its  cases  in  this  section.  These  districts  appear, 
therefore,  to  be  receiving  aid  in  proportion  greater 
than  that  of  their  population,  yet  perhaps  not  in 
such  excess  as  might  be  imagined.  With  an  in- 
crease of  20  per  cent,  in  the  population  of  the  dis- 
trict between  1895  and  1900,  the  percentage  of 
coal  and  groceries  received  by  it  from  the  Provi- 
dent since  1890  has  fallen  off  from  28  to  16.  In 
the  same  period,  the  number  of  persons  in  the  en- 
tire city  receiving  aid  from  the  Society  of  St.  Vin- 
cent de  Paul  has  increased  50  per  cent.,  while  in 
these  districts  the  increase  has  been  slight.  Paral- 
lel with  this  there  has  been  for  the  whole  city  a 
small   increase  in   the  amount  of  relief;  for  the 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEBEST  331 

North  and  West  Ends,  a  slight  decrease.  These 
figures,  so  far  as  they  go,  indicate  that  the  dis- 
tricts are  at  least  not  increasingly  dependent. 

To  this  result  the  Jews  contribute  not  a  little. 
Through  their  Federation,  they  succeed  in  provid- 
ing for  the  bulk  of  their  poor,  very  few  of  whom 
fall  to  the  care  of  the  Overseers.  In  the  North 
End,  as  nearly  as  can  be  ascertained,  out  of  about 
120  families  aided  by  the  Overseers  in  1901,  per- 
haps a  dozen  were  Jewish,  and  half  of  these  were 
aided  only  temporarily.  The  conference  of  the  As- 
sociated Charities  which  deals  most  with  them  has 
not  over  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  its  cases  from  that 
race.  That  is  to  say,  the  addition  of  the  Jews  to 
the  population  of  Boston  has  resulted  in  little  per- 
manent direct  increase  of  demand  upon  the  city's 
relief  resources.  Indirectly,  of  course,  their  mere 
presence  has  contributed  to  the  industrial  pressure 
which  has  forced  others  to  apply  for  aid. 

Among  the  Italians  there  are  one  or  two  relief 
societies,  which,  however,  are  in  the  main  mutual 
insurance  orders,  paying  sickness  and  death  bene- 
fits. Their  general  charitable  work,  limited  as  it 
is  to  their  surplus  funds,  is  necessarily  of  small 
extent.  In  many  cases  where  Italians  ask  for  aid 
it  is  because  sickness  has  exhausted  the  little  hoard 
accumulated  in  the  summer  for  maintenance  during 


332  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

the  idle  winter  months.  When  they  obtain  aid 
from  the  Overseers,  work  is  required  at  the  Way- 
farers' Lodge,  where  they  often  believe  themselves 
on  a  "  City  job."  Most  of  the  aid  given  them  is 
temporary.  Out  of  the  120  families  already  men- 
tioned as  being  aided  by  the  Overseers  of  the  Poor 
at  the  North  End,  about  25  were  Italian,  and  only 
7  of  these  have  received  continuous  relief.  The 
Associated  Charities  last  year,  on  the  other  hand, 
found  three  quarters  of  its  279  North  End  cases, 
of  which  103  were  new  cases,  among  the  Italians. 

Though  the  total  number  of  cases  relieved 
through  Conference  IX.  of  the  Associated  Chari- 
ties was  309,  the  number  of  colored  families  receiv- 
ing assistance  was  but  35.  This  is  accounted  for 
not  so  much  by  prosperity  —  for  there  is  much 
poverty  among  the  Negroes  —  as  by  the  forms  of 
mutual  aid  that  exist  among  the  people  of  this 
race.  Nearly  every  respectable  Negro  belongs  to 
a  sick  benefit  association,  which  he  values,  when 
in  health,  for  its  social  opportunities,  and  turns  to 
for  aid  in  time  of  need. 

By  elimination  we  come  to  a  conclusion,  also 
verified  by  positive  experience,  that  the  Irish  race 
furnishes  the  bulk  of  the  dependents  in  the  North 
and  West  Ends.  Of  the  families  in  the  North  End 
aided  by  the  Overseers,  sixty  per  cent,  are  Irish 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  333 

or  Irish-American  ;  of  the  admissions  to  the  Long 
Island  Almshouse  from  that  district,  half  are  Irish 
or  Irish-American.  And  ordinarily  it  is  not  the 
lately  arrived  immigrant  that  faUs  back  on  charity, 
—  it  is  either  those  who  have  been  in  this  country 
a  long  while  or  an  American-born  generation. 

So  far,  then,  as  the  North  and  West  Ends  are 
dependent  districts,  immigration  is  not  immediately 
and  directly  responsible.  The  newcomers,  while 
many  are  poor  enough,  are  usually  here  in  order  to 
better  themselves ;  most  have  not  lived  in  large 
cities,  nor  have  they  an  extensive  acquaintance 
with  charity.  It  is  rather  the  stragglers  left  be- 
hind by  the  earlier  immigrants  that  are  iinequal  to 
the  task  of  self-support.  ,  Years  of  residence  in  a 
poor,  crowded  quarter,  association  chiefly  with  their 
own  countrymen  and  contact  with  American  life 
only  at  isolated  and  often  the  least  salutary  points 
undermine  their  self-respect  and  make  them  liable 
to  become  alms  receivers. 

Systematic  care  of  children  necessarily  works  in 
intimate  association  with  other  kinds  of  organized 
effort.  The  specific  work  of  this  nature  in  Boston 
is  divided  between  the  City  and  several  private 
societies.  The  City  conducts  all  juvenile  work 
through  the  Children's  Institutions  Department, 
which   takes  in    charge    not   only  dependent  and 


334  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

neglected  children,  but  also  truants  and  juvenile 
lawbreakers.  Boy  criminals  are  sent  to  tbe  House 
of  Reformation  at  Eainsf ord  Island ;  the  truants 
are  sent  to  the  Parental  School  at  West  Roxbury ; 
while  the  dependent  and  neglected  children  are 
placed  out  in  selected  homes  in  various  parts  of 
New  England.  In  the  placing-out  work,  the  chil- 
dren are  assigned  to  families  of  the  same  religious 
faith  as  the  parents.  On  February  1,  1902,  the 
end  of  the  recording  year,  860  children  were  in 
charge  of  the  Placing-Out  Division,  of  which  num- 
ber 319  were  boarding  and  320  in  free  homes ;  the 
remainder  were  in  institutions,  chiefly  the  Massa- 
chusetts School  for  the  Feeble-Minded. 

It  is  the  policy  of  the  Children's  Institutions 
Department  not  to  admit  children  to  its  care  if  any 
private  agency  is  available.  The  most  extensive  of 
these  agencies  is  the  Boston  Children's  Aid  Soci- 
ety, which  does  comprehensive  and  thorough-going 
work  with  both  destitute  and  wayward  children. 
Its  methods  are,  in  brief :  first,  investigation  and, 
if  likely  to  prove  sufficient,  advice;  if  further 
treatment  is  required,  it  refers  the  case  whenever 
possible  to  some  other  and  special  agency ;  when 
this  is  not  feasible,  it  retains  supervision  itself. 
Its  work  in  all  three  ways  is  elastic  and  personal. 
The  Bureau  of  Information  and  Counsel,  although 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  335 

less  conspicuous  than  tlie  other  departments,  is 
especially  valuable  because  its  work  is  so  largely 
preventive ;  its  importance  will  appear  somewhat 
from  the  fact  that  it  rendered  service  in  over  750 
instances  during  the  past  year,  —  a  larger  number 
than  was  credited  to  any  other  department.  The 
Placing-Out  Department  has  under  its  supervision 
at  any  one  time  an  average  of  over  250  children, 
scattered  over  New  England  in  private  homes. 

Destitute  and  abandoned  children  are  also  cared 
for  through  the  Society  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul. 
For  the  most  part,  this  society  does  not  continue  a 
systematic  supervision,  but  places  the  children  in 
Roman  Catholic  institutions.  Out  of  368  variously 
placed  last  year,  293  were  consigned  to  such  insti- 
tutions and  69  to  private  families. 

The  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Chil- 
dren protects  neglected  or  abused  children,  chiefly 
by  legal  means.  It  effects  this  in  the  homes  of 
the  children  if  possible ;  otherwise,  it  removes  the 
children. 

The  day  nurseries,  of  which  there  are  two  —  one 
at  the  North  and  one  at  the  West  End  —  not  only 
provide  during  the  day  better  care  for  young  chil- 
dren than  they  are  likely  to  receive  at  home,  but 
allow  mothers  opportunity  for  work  or  for  recovery 
from  sickness.    In  connection  with  the  North  Ben- 


336  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

net  Street  Day  Nursery,  at  the  North  End,  older 
girls  are  taught  cooking,  table  work  and  care  of 
children,  mothers'  meetings  are  held,  and  enter- 
tainments are  given  for  both  fathers  and  mothers. 
The  matron  visits  in  the  families  of  the  children, 
and  by  suggestion  and  encouragement  tries  to  in- 
crease the  sense  of  responsibility  in  the  mothers, 
and  to  help  toward  healthy,  prudent  home  life. 
This  nursery  is  entirely  free ;  at  the  West  End, 
the  payment  of  five  cents  a  day  is  required. 

At  the  North  and  West  Ends,  as  in  the  city  at 
large,  resources  for  medical  aid  are  comparatively 
abundant.  Perhaps  no  form  of  charity  is  given  or 
received  with  more  satisfaction.  Given,  it  meets 
an  evident  need ;  received,  it  produces  little  of 
the  demoralization  often  consequent  upon  material 
relief,  although  not  even  medical  aid,  of  course, 
escapes  being  imposed  upon.  In  the  West  End 
there  is  particularly  easy  access  to  such  resources, 
as  it  contains  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospi- 
tal ;  the  Boston  Lying-in  Hospital ;  and  the  House 
of  the  Good  Samaritan,  where  care  and  medical 
treatment  are  provided  for  white  women  and  girls, 
and  for  young  boys  ;  the  West  End  Nursery  and  In- 
fants' Hospital ;  St.  Monica's  Home,  a  hospital  for 
colored  women  and  girls  ;  the  Vincent  Memorial 
Hospital,  for  wage-earning  women  and  girls ;  the 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  337 

Massachusetts  Charitable  Eye  and  Ear  Infirmary ; 
the  New  England  Eye  and  Ear  Hospital ;  and  in 
Haymarket  Square,  the  Relief  Station  of  the  Bos- 
ton City  Hospital.  A  branch  of  the  Mount  Sinai 
Hospital  has  recently  been  erected  by  the  Jews  for 
the  better  accommodation  of  the  patients  of  that 
race.  Eight  or  more  prominent  hospitals  situated 
elsewhere  in  Boston  are  open  also  to  the  sick  of 
these  districts.  The  House  of  the  Good  Samari- 
tan, the  out-patient  departments  of  the  other  hos- 
pitals, and  the  Relief  Station  are  entirely  free,  but 
with  these  exceptions  the  hospitals  make  some 
charge  whenever  the  patients  are  able  to  pay. 

Dispensaries  are  connected  with  nearly  all  of 
these  hospitals,  and  a  number  of  independent  dis- 
pensaries are  to  be  found  here  and  there  in  this 
part  of  the  city.  In  connection  with  one  of  the 
latter  a  hospital  is  maintained  at  the  South  End. 
The  Epworth  League  maintains  a  medical  mission 
in  the  North  End.  Two  doctors  and  two  nurses 
are  kept  busy  answering  the  calls  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, chiefly  among  the  Jews  and  the  Italians.  A 
small  fee  is  charged  for  prescriptions,  and  a  mod- 
erate charge  is  made  for  visits  to  the  homes. 

In  the  North  and  West  Ends,  though  not  to 
the  same  extent  as  in  the  South  End,  the  sign 
"  Dispensary  "  is  occasionally  hung  out  to  attract 


338  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

practice  for  a  quack  doctor,  or  is  applied  to  wliat 
poses  as  a  charitable  institution  in  the  announce- 
ments of  "  benefit "  performances,  while  it  more 
than  covers  exiDcnses  by  its  charges  for  medicine. 

Under  the  classification  made  at  the  beginning 
of  this  chapter,  a  few  enterprises  stand  on  the 
border  line  between  the  remedial  and  the  coopera- 
tive. They  furnish  a  much  needed  form  of  chari- 
table aid,  but  it  is  their  purpose  to  use  business 
methods  as  far  as  possible.  /  The  Industrial  Aid 
Society,  the  remainder  of  whose  corporate  name 
reads  "  for  the  Prevention  of  Pauperism,"  is  a  free 
employment  office  for  both  men  and  womeni  It 
makes  special  efforts  to  secure  situations  in  the 
country.  Of  its  applicants  at  present  about  one 
half  of  the  men  and  one  third  of  the  women  —  these 
often  with  children  —  are  sent  to  be  employed  out 
of  town.  Nearly  twice  as  many  positions  are  found 
for  women  as  for  men.  "  The  men  and  women," 
says  a  late  report,  "for  whom  we  seek  and  find 
work  are  very  largely  drawn  from  that  class  of 
the  community  who  are  helped  by  private  charity, 
and  are  liable  at  any  moment  to  become  recipi- 
ents of  public  aid  and  thereby  become  veritable 
paupers."  This  society  has  for  some  time  at- 
tempted to  cooperate  with  the  City's  Wayfarers' 
Lodge  and  Temporary  Home,  in  the  case  of  the 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  339 

latter  with  more  success  than  in  that  of  the 
former.  The  men  interviewed  by  the  society's 
agent  at  the  Lodge,  while  they  appeared  "tem- 
porarily out  of  a  place  and  willing  to  work  if  work 
could  be  found  for  them,"  proved  in  many  instan- 
ces to  be  "  wholly  indifferent  to  their  own  welfare, 
caring  only  to  obtain  a  shelter  for  the  night  and 
something  to  eat."  For  a  number  of  women  from 
the  Home,  places  have  been  provided  by  the 
society. 

Another  small  private  charity  of  similar  nature 
is  a  society  which  is  connected  with  Conference 
VII.  of  the  Associated  Charities.  This  society 
gives  out  plain  sewing  to  women,  and  sells  the  com- 
pleted garments  at  a  reasonable  rate  to  the  poor. 
It  is  intended  to  be  educational  in  its  influence, 
helping  the  women  to  a  permanent  trade. 

From  the  density  and  character  of  the  popula- 
tion in  the  North  and  West  Ends,  one  would  sup- 
pose that  here,  if  anywhere  in  the  city,  is  the  place 
for  efforts  at  model  housing.  The  only  organized 
attempt  of  the  kind,  however,  is  that  of  the  Bos- 
ton Cooperative  Building  Company,  two  of  whose 
five  estates  are  in  these  districts.  Neither  build- 
ing was  erected  by  the  company,  though  a  new 
addition  was  made  to  one  of  them.  The  tenements 
are  kept  in  a  sanitary  and  not  overcrowded  condi- 


340  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

tion,  and  proper  moral  standards  are  insisted  upon. 
Tlie  limited  extent  of  this  company's  effort  in  the 
North  and  West  Ends  is  due  to  the  law  which 
requires  that  a  house  containing  more  than  three 
families  shall  be  thoroughly  fireproof.  A  recent 
report  of  this  company  declares :  "  Careful  esti- 
mates of  the  cost  of  model  tenements  make  it  clear 
that  such  a  house  cannot  be  expected  to  make  a 
good  return  upon  the  investment.  ...  It  is  clear 
that  as  far  as  the  North  End  is  concerned  it  will 
not  much  longer  be  a  residential  district.  The 
encroachments  of  business,  especially  since  the 
building  of  the  new  Union  Stations,  have  raised 
the  price  of  land  to  such  a  point  that  it  becomes 
impossible  for  us  to  supply  good  new  tenements  at 
low  rentals."  In  the  West  End  the  colored  people 
are  being  crowded  out  by  "  the  Jews,  for  whom 
we  need  not  build,  as  their  own  people  supply  all 
necessary  accommodations."  The  upshot  is  that 
this  company  is  locating  its  new  buildings  on  the 
edge  of  Roxbury. 

By  individual  initiative,  however,  a  few  addi- 
tional attempts  in  this  direction  have  been  made. 
Among  the  houses  privately  owned  or  leased  and 
conducted  upon  improved  methods  may  be  men- 
tioned several  on  Chardon  Street  and  others  on 
Norman  Street  and  Church  Place. 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  341 

Jewish  landlords,  as  the  report  of  the  Boston 
Cooperative  Building  Company  points  out,  are 
building  tenement  houses,  but  the  accommodations 
which  they  furnish  comply  with  the  law  by  the 
narrowest  possible  margin.  Such  structures  tend 
to  throw  the  burden  of  maintaining  tolerable  hous- 
ing conditions  upon  the  Building  Department  of 
the  City  and  the  inspectors  of  the  Board  of 
Health. 

Extensive  as  is  the  equipment  and  organization 
of  all  these  remedial  agencies,  and  imposing  as  is  the 
array  of  their  activities,  all  combined  they  succeed 
in  accomplishing  little  more  than  enabling  the  com- 
munity to  hold  its  own  in  the  struggle  for  social 
health.  Their  work  is  negative  ;  it  strives  merely 
to  prevent  the  weaker  parts  of  the  community  from 
succumbing  to  forces  too  strong  for  them.  So  far 
as  ifc  is  successful,  it  gives  people  the  bare  oppor- 
tunity to  make  what  they  can  of  themselves,  but 
does  little  to  aid  them  in  the  process. 

Of  the  spontaneous  efforts  at  seK-improvement, 
the  trade  union,  one  of  the  most  familiar,  seems  to 
be  of  less  importance  in  the  life  of  the  North  and 
West  Ends  than  elsewhere,  at  any  rate  among  the 
more  recent  immigrants.  In  trades  like  the  gar- 
ment-makers, the  Jews  form  the  majority  of  the 
union  membership ;  the  Jewish  bakers  are  organ- 


842  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

ized  separately  ;  in  a  few  trades  there  are  some 
Italians.  In  the  Jews  the  racial  combination  of 
the  communistic  and  individualist  tempers,  now 
one,  now  the  other  uppermost,  prevents  effectual 
cooperation.  Often  ready  enough  to  organize,  they 
with  equal  readiness  break  up  on  a  division  of  inter- 
ests. The  Italians  commonly  do  the  most  unskilled 
sort  of  work ;  this,  in  addition  to  the  jealousy  felt 
toward  each  other  by  natives  of  the  different  sec- 
tions of  Italy,  renders  concerted  action  difficult. 
Both  Jews  and  Italians,  being  unaccustomed  to 
liberty,  are  at  a  loss  how  to  use  it.  The  Irish  of 
the  district,  on  the  contrary,  are  natural  organizers, 
and  have  been  in  this  country  longer  than  either 
of  the  Continental  peoples.  Probably  a  fairly  large 
proportion  of  them  belong  to  unions.  But  these 
represent  mostly  unskilled  trades,  demanding  no 
very  high  grade  of  ability  ;  and  the  organizations, 
being  no  more  stable  than  the  members  composing 
them,  form  on  the  whole  no  influential  part  of  the 
trade-union  world,  on  which,  indeed,  they  some- 
times bring  discredit  by  hasty,  ill-considered  action. 
There  are  many  Socialists  among  the  Jews,  and 
a  few  among  the  Italians.  At  present  they  are  not 
to  any  great  extent  banded  together  in  active  or- 
ganizations. No  doubt  good  times  largely  account 
for  the  absence  of  aggressive  social  unrest.     In  any 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  343 

case,  extreme  types  of  Socialism,  imported  from 
amid  Continental  proletarian  conditions,  soon  be- 
come much  modified  by  American  influences^ 

The  form  of  organization  which  seems  to  have 
struck  the  fancy  of  the  Jews  is  the  benefit  order. 
Some  of  these  are  exclusively  of  Jewish  member- 
ship, like  the  Brith  Abraham  and  the  Sons  of 
Benjamin,  which  extend  throughout  the  country ; 
others  —  and  these  seem  to  be  in  even  higher  favor 
—  are  lodges  of  familiar  American  orders,  such  as 
the  Knights  of  Pythias.  The  social  features  of 
these  societies  constitute,  of  course,  no  small  part 
of  their  attractiveness. 

The  Italians  have  a  number  of  benefit  orders. 
Some  of  these  are  lodges  of  national  organizations 
like  the  Foresters  and  the  Knights  of  Columbus. 
They  also  have  several  military  societies.  They 
belong  in  greatest  numbers  to  the  religious  societies 
connected  with  the  various  churches.  Demanding 
little  from  members  in  the  way  of  dues  or  duties, 
appealing  to  traditional  sentiment  in  the  perpetu- 
ated celebration  of  festival  days,  and  providing 
social  intercourse  in  many  ways,  the  religious  soci- 
eties have,  especially  among  the  Southern  Italians, 
a  well-nigh  universal  following. 

Among  both  Jews  and  Italians  there  are  small 
local  clubs  for  purely  social  purposes.     These  are 


344  AMEBIC  AN  S  IN  PEOCESS 

apt  to  be  rather  short-lived,  springing  up  among 
groups  of  young  people  that  happen  to  be  thrown 
together,  and  dying  out  when  their  interests  begin 
to  diverge.  The  masters  of  the  North  End  schools 
are  encouraging  the  formation  of  associations  among 
their  graduates,  in  an  attempt  to  make  social  inter- 
course more  permanent  and  to  have  it  centre  around 
educational  influences. 

The  importance  of  the  spontaneous  efforts  often 
lies  not  so  much  in  the  external,  concrete  effect 
they  succeed  in  producing  as  in  their  disclosure  of 
real  wants.  It  often  happens  that  the  more  neces- 
sary a  reform  is,  the  less  able  are  those  in  need  of 
it  to  carry  it  out.  But  wherever  there  is  a  persist- 
ent endeavor  for  a  certain  object,  no  matter  whether 
or  not  the  endeavor  succeeds,  there  exists  a  want 
which  the  best  intelligence  of  the  community  must 
reckon  with  sooner  or  later.  Here  is  the  point  at 
which  social  energy  put  forth  will  count  for  most, 
because  at  this  point  it  will  meet  with  most  cooper- 
ation. 

In  the  enterprises  which  we  have  termed  in  the 
broadest  sense  cooperative,  we  find  the  desire  to 
improve  met  half-way  by  the  desire  to  help.  In 
them  the  community's  best  intelligence  is  set  to 
guide  aspirations  to  their  fulfillment,  —  the  ideal 
form  of  social  service.     Its  greatest  embodiments 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEEEST  845 

are  the  church  and  the  school,  which  are,  in  spite 
of  their  imperfections,  the  most  powerful  institu- 
tions in  human  society  aside  from  the  family. 
There  must  be  a  continual  readjustment  of  profes- 
sional methods,  but  this  form  will  always  remain  the 
ideal,  —  the  expert  in  the  service  of  the  many. 

Perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  example  of  this 
sort  of  organization  in  the  districts  under  review  is 
the  North  Bennet  Street  Industrial  School.  The 
name  designates  a  group  of  very  effective  enter- 
prises more  or  less  independent  of  one  another, 
but  housed  in  one  building.  Founded  some  twenty 
years  ago  as  a  mission,  before  long  it  began  to  be  de- 
finitely educational  in  purpose.  Its  workers  became 
convinced  that  the  greatest  need  of  the  district  was 
training  in  industry,  and  accordingly  they  began 
experiments,  the  success  of  which  did  much  to  force 
that  training  into  the  public  schools.  For  fifteen 
years  classes  have  been  sent  from  the  public 
schools  to  its  different  departments ;  its  present 
public  school  classes,  some  fifteen  in  number  and 
comprising  about  nine  hundred  pupils,  are  in- 
structed in  modeling,  sloyd,  leather  work  and  print- 
ing. In  addition  it  has  its  own  evening  classes  in 
millinery,  dressmaking,  cooking  and  sewing,  to- 
gether with  gymnastics  for  both  girls  and  boys. 

Besides  the  Industrial   School  proper,  and  en- 


346  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

tirely  unconnected  with  it,  there  is  in  the  same 
building  the  day  nursery  akeady  mentioned  and  a 
kindergarten,  from  which  a  number  of  clubs  have 
grown  up.  By  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
families,  it  aims  to  cooperate  with  them  in  the 
training  of  the  children ;  at  the  same  time  it  is 
careful  not  to  diminish  the  parents'  responsibility. 
Bearing  only  indirectly  upon  the  local  life,  there 
is  a  normal  training  school  in  sloyd,  of  whose  grad- 
uates about  one  hundred  and  fifty  are  now  teaching 
in  various  parts  of  the  country.  A  branch  of  the 
Public  Library  in  the  building  does  much  to  stim- 
ulate and  supply  a  local  desire  for  good  reading, 
especially  among  the  children.  Its  quarters,  how- 
ever, are  really  inadequate ;  there  should  at  least 
be  separate  rooms  for  adults  and  children.  This 
group  of  enterprises  is  an  example  of  intelligent 
adaptation  of  means  to  needs.  Discarding  several 
departments  —  an  employment  office,  a  relief  sta- 
tion and  others  —  when  they  proved  ill  advised,  it 
has  progressively  met  the  wants  of  its  district.  A 
reading-room  on  Hanover  Street,  while  not  con- 
nected directly  with  the  North  Bennet  Street  In- 
dustrial School,  derives  its  support  and  direction 
from  the  same  general  source.  This  pleasant  re- 
sort, which  is  for  men  only,  is  open  afternoon  and 
evening.      Representatives    of   many  nationalities 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  347 

and  types  of  employment  avail  themselves  of  its 
privileges. 

Generally  similar  in  character  to  the  industrial 
department  of  the  North  Bennet  Street  School, 
although  designed  specifically  for  a  single  race, 
is  the  Hebrew  Industrial  School  on  Allen  Street. 
Here  the  work  is  chiefly  among  girls  and  young 
women,  who  are  taught  cooking,  sewing,  the  care 
of  the  home  and  other  kindred  branches.  The 
aim  is  less  to  train  them  to  become  wage  earners 
than  to  fit  them  for  the  duties  of  domestic  life.  A 
single  club  of  boys,  numbering  twenty-five  or  more, 
engage  in  the  study  of  history  and  in  debates  upon 
current  questions,  to  the  end  that  they  may  take  an 
intelligent  part  in  public  affairs  and  become  good 
citizens.     The  school  follows  the  best  Jewish  ideals. 

Two  other  agencies  for  social  improvement  are 
at  work  chiefly  among  a  single  nationality.  The 
Society  for  the  Protection  of  Italian  Immigrants 
aims  to  insure  new  arrivals  from  Italy  against 
deception  and  villainy,  and  also  to  instruct  them 
in  the  English  language  and  to  give  them  some 
knowledge  of  the  institutions  of  this  country.  Ed- 
ucational classes  are  held  at  its  headquarters  on 
Hanover  Street.  Like  the  Hebrew  Industrial 
School,  this  society  is  conducted  by  representa- 
tives of  the  same  race  as  that  of  its  constituency. 


348  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

They  both  include  among  their  supporters  numer- 
ous public-spirited  citizens  of  Boston  birth  and 
traditions.  The  Civic  Service  House,  on  Salem 
Street,  is  a  settlement  having  Jewish  young  men 
for  its  residents,  some  of  whom  have  grown  up  in 
the  North  End.  It  is  intended  primarily  for  Jews, 
but  includes  Italians  also  within  the  scope  of  its 
efforts.  Political  enlightenment  is  the  underlying 
purpose  of  its  clubs,  classes  and  courses  of  lec- 
tures. Hence  it  reaches  chiefly  boys  and  young 
men.  Its  financial  support  is  from  non-Jewish 
sources. 

The  oldest  of  the  settlements  established  at  the 
North  and  West  Ends  is  the  Epworth  League 
House,  to  whose  medical  work  reference  has  al- 
ready been  made.  Next  in  importance  to  this 
kind  of  service  is  its  effort  in  the  interest  of  ad- 
vanced education.  Two  literary  clubs,  one  of  young 
men,  the  other  of  young  women,  Jews  and  Ital- 
ians, have  been  carried  on  for  a  number  of  years 
with  signal  success.  Several  members  of  the  young 
men's  club  have  taken  partial  or  complete  college 
courses,  and  some  have  entered  professional  careers. 
These  received  not  only  encouragement  but  much 
of  their  actual  instruction  from  residents  of  the 
Epworth  League  House.  There  is  a  distinctively 
religious  atmosphere  about  aU  the  work  of  this 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  349 

settlement.  A  Sunday-school  has  a  regular  place 
on  its  programme.  No  aggressive  attempt  is  made 
at  proselytism  however. 

The  North  End  Union,  under  the  direction  of 
the  Benevolent  Fraternity  of  Churches,  is  hardly  a 
settlement  in  the  full  sense.  During  the  school 
year  it  rents  much  of  its  room  to  the  city  for 
school  and  kindergarten  purposes.  In  two  trades, 
printing  and  plumbing,  a  sort  of  trade  school  is 
carried  on  ;  only  those,  however,  already  engaged 
at  the  trade  may  attend.  The  school  aims  to  sup- 
plement the  practical  knowledge  gained  by  daily 
work,  not  to  teach  beginners.  Its  classes  are  re- 
cruited from  the  city  at  large.  In  other  ways  the 
Union  touches  more  nearly  the  life  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. A  gymnasium  and  a  bath  are  at  the  ser- 
vice of  all  on  simple  conditions,  and  a  reading  and 
recreation  room  is  open  to  boys  certain  hours  of 
the  day  and  evening.  There  is  also  a  Sunday  af- 
ternoon school  broadly  ethical  in  its  aims.  A  flower 
mission  is  an  important  part  of  the  summer  work. 
For  the  accommodation  of  the  children,  a  separate 
house  is  provided  a  few  doors  away.  Here  sew- 
ing and  other  classes  for  girls  are  held. 

There  are  two  settlements  in  the  West  End, 
both  having  women  residents  only.  The  work  of 
the  Elizabeth  Peabody  House   centres  about  the 


350  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

kindergarten  and  the  influence  upon  home  life 
which  may  grow  out  of  it.  The  House  is  situated 
in  one  of  the  most  thoroughly  foreign  spots  in  the 
West  End,  where  the  homes  stand  in  great  need 
of  the  domestic  standards  inculcated  by  the  resi- 
dents. The  Willard  Y.  Settlement  makes  a  spe- 
cial point  of  the  provision  of  quarters  for  working 
girls,  although  it  also  devotes  considerable  atten- 
tion to  the  children  of  the  neighborhood.  Con- 
nected with  this  settlement  is  a  summer  playground 
for  children. 

Very  much  in  the  spirit  of  the  settlements  are 
the  home  libraries  of  the  Children's  Aid  Society, 
scattered  throughout  the  district  to  the  number 
of  twenty.  Since  the  first  of  these  libraries  was 
established  fifteen  years  ago,  the  plan  has  won 
wide  recognition,  and  has  been  adopted  in  many 
other  cities.  The  system,  which  is  now  familiar, 
consists  in  placing  a  small  library  in  some  home, 
with  one  of  the  children  as  custodian,  and  with  a 
volunteer  visitor  in  charge.  The  library  group, 
ten  in  number,  meet  the  volunteer  director  once  a 
week  in  the  home,  talk  over  the  books  which  they 
have  read,  play  games  or  plan  for  any  activities 
which  the  group  may  carry  on.  From  this  centre 
influences  branch  out  in  all  directions,  and  the 
possibilities  are  limited  only  by  the  personal  re- 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEBEST  351 

sources  and  capacity  of  the  leader.  The  children 
belonging  to  these  libraries  are  usually  under  fif- 
teen years  of  age. 

The  Stamp  Savings  or  Home  Savings  Society 
affords  a  natural  introduction  to  a  neighborhood. 
It  at  once  gives  the  collector  an  occupation  with 
which  he  may  be  identified  in  the  minds  of  his 
public,  and  puts  in  his  way  many  opportunities  for 
friendly  service.  There  are  collecting  stations  at 
the  North  End  Union,  the  Epworth  League  and 
Elizabeth  Peabody  Houses  and  St.  Andrew's.  A 
number  of  independent  collectors  have  lists  of  fami- 
lies whose  savings  they  call  for  at  weekly  intervals. 

Aside  from  its  work  through  such  agencies  as 
its  Building  Department,  Board  of  Health  and 
Street  Cleaning  Division,  the  City  contributes  to 
the  health  and  enjoyment  of  people  in  its  crowded 
quarters  through  its  pubhc  baths,  gymnasiums  and 
playgrounds.  The  North  End  Park,  which  lies 
along  the  water-front  at  the  foot  of  Copp's  Hill, 
combines  a  beach  bath  with  a  general  pleasure  re- 
sort. Here  on  either  side  is  a  solidly  constructed 
building  containing  dressing  quarters,  one  of  the 
houses  being  for  men  and  boys,  the  other  for  wo- 
men and  girls.  A  double  recreation  pier  extends 
well  out  into  the  water,  affording  a  delightful  view 
of  the  harbor.     A  portion  of  the  beach  is  reserved 


352  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

for  girls  and  young  children,  where  swings,  see- 
saws and  piles  of  sand  are  provided.  Space  is  fur- 
nished also  for  quoits,  hand  ball  and  other  games 
in  which  the  boys  like  to  engage.  The  play,  as 
well  as  the  bathing,  is  in  charge  of  attendants  and 
instructors  in  the  pay  of  the  City.  Band  concerts 
are  occasionally  given,  and  the  season  ends  with  a 
water  carnival,  at  which  prizes  are  offered  for  pro- 
ficiency in  swimming.  Everything  is  entirely  free 
with  the  exception  that  a  small  fee  is  charged  for 
the  use  of  bathing  suits  and  towels.  In  the  case 
of  children,  even  this  charge  may  be  remitted. 
The  popularity  of  this  park  may  be  inferred  from 
the  number  of  bathers  during  a  single  summer. 
In  1901  this  amounted  to  280,000,  the  larger 
part  of  whom  were  from  the  immediate  vicinity. 
The  North  End  Park  is  in  charge  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Public  Baths. 

At  the  West  End,  similar  opportunities  for  health 
and  recreation  are  provided  in  the  Charlesbank, 
a  park  extending  along  the  river-front  the  whole 
distance  between  the  Craigie  and  West  Boston 
bridges.  This  park  is  under  the  direction  of  the 
Municipal  Park  Commission.  There  are  no  out- 
of-door  bathing  facilities,  but  hot  and  cold  baths 
are  furnished  the  year  round,  the  two  sexes 
occupying  separate  buildings.     An  open-air  gym- 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  353 

nasium  adjoins  each  of  these  bathing  establish- 
ments ;  and  the  women  may  continue  athletic  ex- 
ercises through  the  winter  in  a  gymnasium  under 
the  same  roof  with  their  bath.  The  women's 
gymnasium,  as  well  as  a  spacious  playground  for 
children,  is  in  charge  of  the  Massachusetts  Emer- 
gency and  Hygiene  Association.  The  Charles- 
bank  includes  a  pleasant  resort  with  shaded  walks 
and  seats  and  an  attractive  view  of  the  river. 

In  the  West  End  Branch  of  the  Public  Library, 
the  City  has  made  local  provision  for  needs  of 
another  character.  The  stately  old  West  Church 
building  was  purchased  in  1894  for  the  purpose, 
and  has  been  admirably  adapted  to  its  new  uses. 
Here  three  hundred  or  more  reference  books  may 
be  consulted,  and  selections  may  be  made  from 
twelve  thousand  other  volumes  for  reading  on  the 
premises  or  for  use  at  home.  In  addition,  the 
two  reading-rooms,  one  for  adults  and  one  for  chil- 
dren, are  well  supplied  with  periodical  hterature. 
Each  year  sees  a  marked  increase  in  the  number 
of  people  availing  themselves  of  these  privileges. 
In  1900,  131,522  books  were  taken  out  for  reading 
at  home ;  in  1901,  137,713.  The  reading-rooms, 
with  a  combined  seating  capacity  of  350,  are  often 
crowded,  especially  on  Sunday.  Among  this  great 
number  of  patrons,  the  Jews  are  the  most  largely 


354  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

represented;  the  Irish  come  next,  and  there  is  a 
considerable  proportion  of  Negroes. 

Very  recently  a  combination  of  interests  has 
been  formed  with  the  general  improvement  of  the 
North  End  as  its  object.  Its  significance  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  undertakes  to  be  an  alliance  of 
all  citizens  in  sympathy  with  its  object,  and  in- 
cludes Roman  Catholic  clergy,  local  politicians 
and  settlement  workers.  The  churches  were  the 
prime  movers,  driven  to  such  exertions  by  the 
menacing  fact  that  the  better  members  of  their 
congregations  are  leaving  the  district  for  more  de- 
sirable residential  quarters.  Already  something  has 
been  accomplished  in  the  way  of  securing  cleaner 
streets  and  better  order.  It  is  through  concrete 
effort  based  on  familiarity  with  the  detailed  facts 
that  this  attempt  promises  to  be  effective. 

Slight  as  this  enterprise  is,  it  represents  a  suffi- 
cient conjunction  of  forces  to  rouse  the  hope  of 
distinct  and  permanent  gains  in  social  conditions 
at  the  North  End.  It  is  carrying  toward  a  logical 
conclusion  the  motive  in  which  the  best  type  of 
social  service,  as  seen  in  these  districts,  is  under- 
taken. By  means  of  allied  action  on  the  part  of 
all  their  centres  of  influence,  whether  of  a  normal 
or  an  exceptional  character,  the  great  bulk  of  the 
population  of  each  district  could  be  drawn  into  a 


COMMUNITY  OF  INTEREST  355 

common  loyalty  and  trained  to  a  collective  initia- 
tive. Every  helpful  agency  would  be  enabled  to 
make  its  full  contribution  to  the  local  well-being 
with  only  a  minimum  of  loss  on  account  of  isola- 
tion or  cross-purposes.  Each  would  have  its  stand- 
ing as  a  recognized  constituent  factor  in  the  total 
life  of  its  district.  The  best  inherent  possibilities 
of  the  people  would  be  brought  to  light  by  such 
developments  of  mutual  aid.  It  v/ould  then  be 
easy  to  secure  from  the  municipality  further  large 
measures  designed  to  meet  district  needs.  In  gen- 
eral, through  the  growth  of  district  public  spirit,  the 
North  and  West  Ends,  as  compact  units,  would 
be  enabled  to  draw  far  more  deeply  upon  the  vast 
resources  of  the  city's  civilization. 


CHAPTER  XII 

ASSIMILATION  :    A   TWO-EDGED    SWORD 

There  is  somewhere  a  parable  tliat  narrates  how 
a  dread  disease  appeared  in  the  lodge  of  a  great 
estate.  The  manor-house  was  far  in  through  wind- 
ing lanes.  Yet  one  day  the  scourge,  spreading 
this  way  and  that,  leaped  over  the  distance,  smit- 
ing the  firstborn  and  future  master.  Thus  was  it 
burned  into  the  souls  of  those  in  the  great  house 
and  those  in  the  cottage  that  there  is  one  human 
family. 

At  the  city's  gateway  lie  two  communities  stricken 
with  the  evils  attendant  on  toil  and  deprivation, 
and  kept  aloof  by  alien  birth  as  well  as  by  poverty 
from  prosperous,  indigenous  citizenship.  In  the 
simpler  round  of  domestic  life  and  friendly  inter- 
course, the  people  are  to  a  surprising  degree  with- 
out reproach  ;  but  the  larger  social  life  tends  to 
drift  as  it  will.  There  is  a  measure  of  vicarious 
public  spirit  sustained  for  these  districts  by  men  and 
women  whose  sphere  of  influence  would  ordinarily 
lie  elsewhere.    These  persons  also  strive  to  broaden 


ASSIMILATION:   A   TWO-EDGED  SWORD     357 

and  strengthen  character  among  the  people  against 
the  stram  of  an  untried,  distracting  existence.  The 
ultimate  issue  for  individual  and  common  well- 
being  lies  in  the  counter-currents  which  are  bring- 
ing these  communities  into  the  full  vital  circulation 
of  the  city's  existence. 

The  North  and  West  Ends,  along  several  im- 
portant Hues,  provide  a  large  share  of  the  labor 
force  required  for  the  city.  They  are  also  rapidly 
opening  avenues  of  small  trade  auxiliary  to  some 
of  the  city's  principal  business  enterprises.  The 
development  of  skilled  workers  is  slow  and  needs 
encouragement.  Not  so  with  the  shopkeepers.  In- 
deed within  a  comparatively  short  time  many  of 
them  will  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  downtown 
merchants,  while  their  children  are  even  now  for- 
cing their  way  upward  into  the  professions. 

Yet  the  path  of  success  is  blocked  to  many  of 
those  who  feel  in  themselves  the  capacity  for  better 
things.  To  them  America  has  represented  great 
hopes.  Democracy  meant  a  breaking  down  of  the 
barriers  that  confined  them  ;  but  they  discover  this 
to  be  true  only  as  affecting  the  technical  frame- 
work of  democracy,  —  the  administration  of  gov- 
ernment. Baffled  in  other  directions,  men  with 
initiative  and  mental  grasp  give  rein  to  their 
power  and  ambition  in  the  field  of  politics.     These 


358  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

leaders  develop  an  unscrupulous  system  of  con- 
trol over  local  interests,  public  and  private.  The 
spread  of  this  system  to  all  similar  districts  has 
made  it  to  a  large  extent  dominant  in  the  pub- 
lic administration  of  the  city.  The  prosperous 
classes  have  begun  to  find  that  a  demoralizing 
political  regime,  bred  in  the  midst  of  an  alien,  iU- 
favored  way  of  life,  is  getting  its  hold  upon  the 
affairs  of  their  pleasant  residential  districts,  and 
even  at  times  threatens  important  downtown  busi- 
ness interests. 

Here  begins  the  application  of  the  parable. 
Among  the  most  respectable  suburban  population 
to  be  found  within  the  boundaries  of  the  city  there 
is  a  startling  instance  of  political  contagion.  A 
man  holding  great  political  power,  formerly  in 
high  office,  determined  to  hold  still  higher,  stands 
practically  convicted  of  misappropriation  of  public 
funds.  Notwithstanding  this  fact,  it  is  only  by 
the  most  earnest  and  persistent  efforts  of  high- 
minded  citizens  that  he  is  kept  from  full  politi- 
cal control  of  the  district.  What  is  the  secret 
of  his  mysterious  power?  This  man,  a  Republi- 
can, of  New  England  origin,  now  living  in  the 
same  fashion  as  his  suburban  neighbors,  began 
his  political  career  not  many  years  ago  as  a  resi- 
dent of  the  West  End,  under  the  tutelage  of  the 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWOBD     359 

Democratic  boss  of  that  district.  The  West  End 
Democratic  boss  secured  his  nomination  and  elec- 
tion as  a  Republican  to  the  State  legislature.  This 
same  boss  assisted  him  to  an  important  appointive 
office  under  a  Republican  mayor.  On  removing  to 
the  suburbs  he  at  once  proceeded  to  put  in  force 
the  policy  of  his  master,  adapted  somewhat  to  dif- 
ferent local  conditions.  The  two  men  continue  to 
maintain  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance,  with 
utter  disregard  of  party  lines.  It  is  as  if  in  the 
Civil  War  there  had  been  two  bands  of  guerrillas, 
ostensibly  on  opposite  sides  in  the  contest  but 
really  acting  in  unison,  caring  nothing  for  the 
issue  at  stake,  and  only  for  booty.  In  the  City 
Council  it  is  now  and  then  possible  to  see  this  alli- 
ance in  actual  operation.  There  are  times  when 
some  disgraceful  scheme  has  been  so  thoroughly 
exposed  as  to  draw  off  all  members  who  have  any 
healthy  fear  of  public  opinion.  At  such  moments, 
when  the  smoke  of  conflict  clears,  a  group  of  the 
West  End  type  of  Democrats  and  certain  Dorches- 
ter Republicans  are  often  found  standing  together^ 
held  by  the  honor  which  obtains  among  such. 

This  combination  greatly  aids  the  boss  of  the 
West  End  in  postponing  the  effects  of  the  incur- 
sion of  an  alien  race  into  his  ward.  The  North 
End  leader  has  been  studying  how  he  too,  under 


360  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

similar  stress,  may  make  to  himself  friends  of  the 
suburban  mammon  of  unrighteousness.  He  is,  in 
a  different  way,  proceeding  to  lay  a  long  base  line 
for  general  municipal  operations.  He  has  decided 
to  give  up  his  home  in  the  country  and  establish 
himself  as  resident  boss  in  one  of  the  Dorchester 
wards,  just  beyond  South  Boston,  whose  leader 
died  recently.  This  ward  presents  a  promising 
future  to  him,  as  it  is  fast  becoming  Democratic. 
His  brother  will  remain  as  regent  in  the  North 
End.  The  North  End  ward  and  this  Dorchester 
ward,  in  the  near  future,  will  be  found  acting  in 
rigid  unison.  They  will  exercise  a  combined  lev- 
erage at  City  Hall  equal  to  that  of  three  or  four 
wards  acting  separately.  Supposing  the  present 
political  working  unity  between  the  North  and 
West  Ends  to  continue,  the  two  districts  pictured, 
forth  in  this  book,  each  with  its  surburban  satrapy, 
will  determine  the  public  policy  of  the  city  of 
Boston. 

Political  conditions  in  districts  like  the  North 
and  West  Ends  are  the  occasion  of  much  of  the 
corrupting  influence  which  certain  corporations  ex- 
ert upon  the  City  Council  and  the  State  legislature, 
though  the  blame  of  the  corporations  is  not  less 
but  greater  on  that  account.  The  bosses  of  these 
two    districts    are   frequently  mentioned    in    such 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWORD     361 

connections.  There  is  striking  evidence  tliat  cor- 
poration leaders  accept,  use  and  fortify  the  ward 
machine  system.  A  recent  flagrant  case  before 
the  legislature,  involving  a  matter  profoundly  and 
obviously  affecting  the  well-being  of  the  congested 
masses  of  the  people,  was  at  last  disposed  of  sat- 
isfactorily only  by  a  powerful  veto  message  from 
the  governor.  At  every  stage  the  representatives 
of  the  North  and  West  Ends  voted  like  automata 
in  support  of  extortionate  corporation  demands. 
The  explanation  is,  of  course,  that  so  many  cor- 
poration jobs  and  other  favors  have  been  dispensed 
in  those  districts  that  their  representatives  were 
completely  in  the  power  of  the  corporation.  If  a 
prominent  corporation  leader  aspires  to  the  gover- 
norship, with  its  saving  veto  power,  the  ease  with 
which  he  secures  control  of  the  political  resources 
of  Wards  6  and  8,  and  similar  districts,  is  the 
prime  element  of  strength  in  his  candidacy. 

The  time  must  come  when  the  honest  citizens  of 
Dorchester,  who  find  themselves  hard  put  to  it  to 
crush  the  viper  in  their  bosom,  shall  open  their  eyes 
to  the  fact  that  the  political  problem  of  Dorches- 
ter cannot  be  disposed  of  except  by  including  the 
North  and  West  Ends  in  a  combined  attack.  Back 
Bay  citizens  with  some  of  the  old-time  Boston  public 
spirit,  who  are  amazed   to  discover  college  mates 


t62  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

and  fellow  club  members  confronting  them  in  their 
reasonable  efforts  to  protect  the  pubHc  interest, 
must  begin  to  devote  an  important  part  of  their 
attention  to  the  enemy's  base  of  supply  for  alder- 
manic  and  legislative  votes  in  Wards  6  and  8  and 
similar  little  known  sections  of  the  city.  Saga- 
cious business  men,  demanding  that  the  legislature 
shall  treat  corj)oration  franchises  precisely  as  a 
business  firm  would,  must  not  only  scrutinize  the 
propositions  which  the  corporations  set  before  the 
legislature,  but  must  deal  with  those  determining 
factors  in  the  background,  where  legislators  from 
the  crowded  districts  have  their  walk  and  conver- 
sation with  their  constituents,  which  prevent  their 
making  a  good  bargain  for  the  public  and  cause 
them  so  easily  to  acquiesce  in  arrogant  corporation 
demands. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  evil  communica- 
tions are  much  worse  than  no  communications  at 
all.  There  is  a  strange,  ever-increasing  reaction 
upon  the  life  of  affairs  and  upon  social  morality  in 
Boston  as  a  result  of  the  rift  in  society  between 
the  native  and  immigrant  stocks.  In  affairs  the 
distinction,  speaking  roughly,  is  that  between  busi- 
ness and  politics.  The  successful  business  classes 
are  filled  with  contempt  for  the  entire  political 
personnel.     Membership  in  the  City  Council  im- 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWORD     363 

pairs  9j  man's  business  credit  if  he  has  any.  It  is 
literally  true  that  among  business  men  an  apology 
seems  to  be  called  for  when  one  is  seen  in  City 
Hall.  In  Athens  it  was  the  mark  of  the  aristocracy 
that  they  governed  the  city,  while  the  newly  en- 
franchised class  attended  to  its  provisioning.  In 
this  latter-day  democratic  city,  the  situation  is  pre- 
cisely reversed.  This  means  that  the  large  majority 
of  those  men  in  Boston  who  are  making  the  fullest 
use  of  American  economic  opportunities  are  fast  dis- 
missing from  their  minds  the  civic  responsibilities 
which  form  the  just  and  essential  balance  to  those 
opportunities.  Considering  the  serious  nature  of 
our  municipal  needs,  the  question  may  fairly  be 
raised  whether  the  average  business  man  in  Boston 
is  any  worthier  pillar  of  a  democratic  municipality 
than  is  the  average  politician. 
1  On  the  moral  side,  the  working  classes,  strikingly 
illustrated  by  the  two  districts  under  review  in  this 
volume,  are  not  held  together  with  the  established 
and  comfortable  classes  in  a  single  great  spiritual 
communion  standing  ever  for  common  humanity. 
The  two  sections  of  society  are  in  separate  and 
opposing  religious  bodies.  The  force  of  these  di- 
vergent loyalties  is  distinctly  anti-social.  Religious 
cleavage,  coinciding  very  closely  with  racial  and 
industrial  lines  of  distinction,  tends  to  make  the 


364  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

old-establislied  Protestantism  of  the  city  a  mere 
middle-class  religion.  To  Protestantism,  and  to 
Protestants  as  such,  this  means  exclusion  from  the 
most  essential  moral  function  of  the  church  in  a 
democracy,  and  ultimate  apathy  and  atrophy  in  the 
face  of  public  moral  needs. 

!  So  far  as  informal  social  intercourse  goes,  the 
native  part  of  the  city's  population  has  been  con- 
stituted a  separated  aristocracy,  in  spite  of  itself, 
by  the  coming  of  the  immigrants.  There  is  some- 
times a  saving  human  relation  between  classes  where 
they  have  the  same  blood  and  the  same  traditions, 
as  in  Scotland.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  the  favored 
class,  except  by  special  exertion,  has  little  if  any 
common  experience  upon  which  to  base  common 
understanding  with  those  who  make  up  the  city's 
industrial  population.  Even  when  persons  from 
one  side  come  in  contact  with  persons  from  the 
other,  there  are  special  obstacles  to  that  by-play  of 
acquaintance  which  softens  and  uplifts  the  motives 
of  life,  and  serves  particularly  as  an  antidote  to 
the  temptations  of  the  prosperous.  It  even  begins 
to  appear  that  the  absence  of  the  means  of  social 
intercommunication  is  a  serious  hindrance  in  the 
conduct  of  business.  To  the  employer,  the  ease  of 
coming  to  terms  and  keeping  on  terms  with  his  la- 
bor force  is  an  increasingly  important  factor  in  his 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWORD     365 

success.  Many  thoughtful  business  men  are  con- 
scious of  the  fact  that  the  character  of  the  growth 
of  the  city's  population  has  left  them  particularly 
at  a  loss  in  this  respect. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  problems  of  the 
North  and  West  Ends  cannot  be  considered  alone. 
In  the  more  obvious  point  of  view,  the  needs  of 
these  districts,  in  themselves,  are  so  great  as  to 
call  upon  the  whole  city  for  remedy.  When  the 
situation  is  looked  into  more  deeply,  the  reflex 
influence  of  these  communities  upon  the  city  as  an 
entirety  is  so  pervasive  as  to  challenge  the  collec- 
tive efforts  of  citizens  and  the  corporate  action  of 
the  municipality  and  the  commonwealth. 

There  has  already  been  governmental  procedure 
against  unsanitary  dwellings,  against  a  degrading 
form  of  industry,  against  base  amusements,  which 
has  lifted  the  whole  material  and  moral  scale  of 
living.  Steps  toward  the  public  supply  of  positive 
social  opportunity  are  now  being  taken.  The  two 
waterside  playgrounds  for  summer  sports  are  soon 
to  have  their  complement  in  two  public  indoor  gym- 
nasiums with  baths,  one  for  each  district.  This, 
with  the  provision  of  baths  in  the  new  school  build- 
ings, will  furnish  satisfactory  public  facilities  for 
cleanliness  and  physical  exercise.  A  beginning  has 
been  made  in  the  public  use  of  school  buildings,  out 


\ 


366  AMERICANS  IN  PBOCESS 

of  regular  hours,  for  special  forms  of  education  and 
recreation  ;  this  movement  will,  without  doubt,  be 
rapidly  extended.  At  no  distant  date  there  must 
be  in  each  of  these  districts  a  kind  of  local  town 
hall  which  shall  serve  as  a  highly  attractive  centre 
for  technical  and  artistic  training,  for  the  popu- 
lar ministry  of  good  music,  good  books  and  good 
pictures,  and  for  every  sort  of  friendly  gathering 

ithat   includes    large   numbers   of  different  racial 
types   of  the  people.     Such  an    institution   may, 
(■    without  hesitation,  be  said  to  be  a  necessity  to  the 
'    Americanization  and  general  progress  of  such  com- 
munities. ) 

Along  with  new  forms  of  municipal  enterprise, 
there  is  still  need  of  further  penetrating  action  in 
the  better  care  of  the  streets,  in  the  establishment 
of  a  still  higher  standard  for  the  condemnation 
of  unsanitary  dwellings  and  in  further  restrictions 
upon  the  alteration  of  old  houses  into  flats  and 
tenements.  It  is  much  to  be  hoped,  in  the  inter- 
est of  the  North  End  population,  that  the  day  may 
soon  come  when  the  business  of  the  city  will  re- 
quire the  opening  of  new  streets  which  shall  cut 
through  some  of  its  congested  areas  to  connect  the 
North  and  South  Stations. 

The  development  of  a  far-sighted,  human  mu- 
nicipal policy  will  add  greatly  to  the  health  and 


ASSIMILATION :    A   TWO-EDGED  SWORD     367 

happiness  of  North  and  West  End  people.  It  will 
have  an  indirect  result  which  will  be  hardly  less 
important.  Such  municipal  action,  coming  close 
to  the  needs  of  the  people,  will  create  among  them 
a  realistic  civic  sense.  It  will  give  them  some  ac- 
tual experience  and  training  in  the  privileges  of 
democracy.  It  will  constantly  illustrate  to  them, 
in  such  ways  that  they  will  themselves  feel  the 
distinction,  the  relative  effects  of  good  and  bad 
administration.  While  such  a  programme  will  not 
destroy  boss  power,  it  is  certain  that  abstract  re- 
form is  impotent  to  produce  that  result  in  these 
districts.  What  may  be  hoped  for  is  the  gradual 
rise  of  a  higher  type  of  political  leader,  one  who 
will  seek  popular  support  through  the  promotion 
of  such  public  services  as  have  been  mentioned, 
rather  than  through  various  dubious  forms  of  pat- 
ronage. 

A  quite  unideal  politician  of  this  more  progres- 
sive type  may  well  have  the  cooperation  of  those 
who  are  seeking  the  next  step,  not  the  ultimate 
height,  in  municipal  and  social  improvement.  Poli- 
ticians who  persist  in  turning  their  eyes  away  from 
the  light,  who  show  no  sense  of  their  public  re- 
sponsibility, and  no  purpose  to  raise  the  condition 
of  the  entire  mass  of  the  people  in  their  districts, 
must  be  pilloried  as  public  enemies.     Here  again 


368  AMERICANS  IN  FBOCESS 

there  must  be  a  general  movement  throughout  the 
city  if  actual  results  are  to  be  achieved.  The 
power  of  all  the  local  politicians  is,  to  a  large 
extent,  sustained  and  increased  by  combinations 
formed  in  the  Board  of  Aldermen.  The  total 
number  of  responsible  citizens  throughout  the  city 
could  assert  their  will  if  the  aldermen  were  nomi- 
nated and  elected  at  large,  and  the  records  of  all 
candidates  for  the  board  placed  under  the  scrutiny 
of  the  whole  city.^  The  Public  School  Associa- 
tion, after  a  few  years  of  determined  effort,  has 
been  able  to  change  the  character  of  the  School 
Board.  Having  won  in  this  preliminary  skirmish, 
municipal  reform  must  now  proceed  to  the  far 
more  serious  task  of  providing  the  city  with  a  re- 
sponsible group,  if  not  majority,  of  men  in  its 
chief  legislative  chamber.  The  high  standard 
which  has  been  kept  for  the  mayoralty  would  thus 
be  made  much  more  secure  ;  but,  what  is  especially 
to  the  present  point,  the  possibility  of  drawing  upon 
public  resources  and  wielding  public  influence  as 
material  of  ward  machine  transactions  would  be 
greatly  restricted. 

^  Recent  legislation  looking-  toward  the  abolition  of  nomi- 
nating conventions  makes  the  chance  of  success  in  this  matter 
much  greater  than  it  has  been  at  any  time  before.  These  con- 
ventions are  often  used  to  defeat  the  popular  will. 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWOBD     3G9 

In  support  of  this  attack,  front  and  rear,  in 
City  Hall  and  among  the  tenement  houses,  against 
the  worst  phases  of  municipal  corruption,  there  is 
urgent  need  of  action  on  the  part  of  business 
organizations,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  church, 
on  the  other.  The  commercial  and  moral  weKare 
of  the  city  is  certainly  deeply  involved.  But  aside 
from  politics,  the  situation  in  the  North  and  West 
Ends,  and  other  similar  districts,  calls  for  large 
enterprise  on  the  part  of  these  interests,  each  act- 
ing within  its  own  sphere. 

There  are  ways  of  economic  service  for  the 
sake  of  the  city  and  the  nation  amid  such  popu- 
lations, affecting  their  housing,  their  food,  their 
industry,  their  recreation,  in  which  there  is  ur- 
gent need  of  the  best  business  method  and  the 
best  business  skill.  Young  men  in  commercial 
callings,  who  under  different  circumstances  would 
aspire  to  fulfill  some  honorable  official  public  duty, 
may  thus  find  opportunities  which  to  the  discern- 
ing mind  are  quite  as  interesting  and  rewarding. 

As  to  the  churches  of  the  well-to-do,  —  which, 
speaking  broadly,  means  the  Protestant  churches, 
—  it  has  been  made  clear  that  in  their  formal  doc- 
trinal capacity,  they  can  touch  only  the  fringe  of 
the  situation  set  forth  in  these  chapters.  Not  far 
from  one  third  of  all  the  people  of  Boston  fall  into 


370  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

the  same  general  category  as  tlie  inhabitants  of 
the  North  and  West  Ends,  —  heavily  handicapped 
by  material  conditions  in  every  struggle  for  char- 
acter and  the  more  abundant  life,  held  in  religious 
associations  chiefly  made  up  of  themselves,  and 
therefore  impotent  to  lift  the  load/  Numerous 
forerunners  have  indeed  gone  forth  out  of  the  re- 
sourceful, separated  churches  of  the  prosperous 
city  districts  ;  but  there  must  come  out  of  these 
comfortable  congregations  a  large,  free,  adventu- 
rous movement  which  in  the  name  of  the  one  God 
and  a  common  humanity  shall  address  itself  to  this 
greatest  of  all  the  city's  spiritual  needs.  It  is  a 
melancholy  reflection  that  when  any  serious  moral 
crisis  arises  in  the  thick  of  the  Boston  working 
classes,  the  old-established  religious  life  of  the 
city  is  almost  utterly  without  authority  or  power 
among  them  in  shaping  the  issue.  Yet  there  are 
a  thousand  human  ways,  aside  from  the  region  of 
sectarian  strife,  in  which  such  moral  influence  can 
be  establishedy 

For  the  larger  work  of  social  uplift  among  the 
people  of  the  North  and  West  Ends,  the  foregoing 
studies  indicate  the  main  lines  of  action.  The  popu- 
lation may  be  broadly  separated  into  three  different 
strata,  each  having  needs  quite  different  from  those 
of  the  others.    There  is  the  residuum  at  the  bottom, 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWOED     871 

characterized  by  some  chronic  form  of  dependence 
or  degeneracy.  There  is  the  aristocracy  of  labor  at 
the  top,  those  who  are  likely  to  rise  out  of  work- 
ing-class life  altogether,  including  all  who  are  born 
with  special  capacity,  whatever  their  surroundings 
may  be.  Between  the  two  levels  is  a  great  middle 
class  of  labor,  the  working  class  proper,  made  up 
of  those  who  will  neither  rise  nor  fall  out  of  their 
gi-ade,  and  most  of  whose  children  will  not  pass 
above  it. 

Among  those  who  make  up  the  residuum,  much 
more  thoroughgoing  methods  are  needed  than  those 
now  in  force.  The  tramps,  or  roving  paupers,  who 
are  very  common  in  these  districts,  especially  in 
winter,  ought  to  encounter  in  Boston  a  work  test 
that  would  be  sternly  reinforced  by  the  police  and 
by  an  awakened  public  sentiment.  The  Board  of 
Overseers,  by  a  daring,  determined  policy  in  con- 
nection with  the  Wayfarers'  Lodge,  could  effectu- 
ally remove  Boston  from  the  tramps'  road  map, 
and  thus  abolish  the  roving  pauper  so  far  as  Bos- 
ton is  concerned.  The  early  stages  of  resident 
pauperism,  drunkenness,  prostitution  and  crime 
should  be  met  by  patient  counteracting  treatment ; 
but  their  more  advanced  phases  ought  all  to  be 
dealt  with  after  the  manner  of  the  cumulative 
sentence  leading  up  to  permanent  seclusion.     By 


372  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

removing  these  specially  difficult  factors  from  the 
poverty  equation,  it  would  be  much  easier  to 
conduct  forms  of  relief  for  those  who  have  hon- 
orably fallen  out  of  the  struggle  for  subsistence, 
temporarily  or  permanently.  There  would  be  free 
scope  for  broadly  devised,  private,  cooperative  and 
municipal  measures  of  assistance  to  families  over- 
come by  some  domestic  catastrophe,  to  workmen 
forced  into  the  ranks  of  the  unemployed  and  to 
industrial  veterans  who  have  worthily  ended  their 
term  of  service.  All  such  effort,  since  early  Chris- 
tian days,  has  had  its  dignity  from  the  side  of 
human  compassion.  Modern  economic  science  lias 
given  added  meaning  to  it  by  showing  the  impor- 
tance of  saving  the  wastes  of  labor  force,  and  of 
shielding  the  superior  grades  of  labor  from  the 
disastrous  competition  of  those  who,  for  one  reason 
or  another,  are  driven  to  a  desperate  fight  for  bare 
existence. 

For  those  who  stand  contrasted  with  the  strag- 
glers of  the  industrial  army,  whose  native  capaci- 
ties mark  them  out  for  the  higher  levels  of  work 
and  an  appreciation  of  the  finer  things  of  fife,  it 
is  of  the  greatest  public  importance  that  a  cramp- 
ing environment  should  not  be  permitted  to  shut 
them  off ^  from  opportunities  on  the  plane  of  their 
talents.     One  of  the  most   serious  obstacles  that 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWORD      373 

confronts  the  ambitious  youth  from  the  North  and 
West  Ends  takes  the  form  of  certain  racial  dislikes 
felt  by  men  of  power  in  the  city's  business  affairs. 
Whatever  ground  there  may  be  for  such  feelings, 
they  are  comparatively  groundless  as  affecting  the 
rising  generation.  An  attitude  of  this  sort,  where 
there  ought  to  be  opened  up  to  the  bright  young 
Jew  the  full  range  of  industry,  is  condemning 
him,  somewhat  as  in  the  Middle  Ages,  to  certain 
narrow  lines  of  trade.  It  leaves  to  enterprising 
young  Irish-Americans  httle  recourse  aside  from 
the  ever  open  path  into  corrupt  politics.  Fre- 
quently they  go  into  ward  politics  in  order  to  get 
a  start  in  business  or  the  law,  and  are  held  for  life 
by  its  lucrative  but  ignoble  inducements.  The 
Italians  cannot  be  kept  from  entering  a  very  wide 
range  of  occupations,  but  their  rise  in  their  call- 
ings is  often  hindered  by  that  caution  on  the  part 
of  employers  which  is  akin  to  prejudice.  There 
must  be  a  wider  entrance  for  the  children  of  the 
newcomers  into  the  great  constructive  activities  of 
the  city.  J  This  is  a  matter  of  serious  moment  to 
the  comniercial  progress  of  the  city,  as  well  as  to 
the  young  men  of  the  immigrant  nationalities. 

The  waste  of  ability  and  genius  —  one  of  the 
sadly  prominent  phenomena  of  North  and  West 
End  existence  —  is  coming  to  be  recognized  as  a 


374  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

dangerous  form  of  public  profligacy.^  The  pro- 
ductive capacity  of  a  nation  or  a  city  is  the  fun- 
damental source  of  its  wealth.  In  the  city  of 
Boston,  three  brilliant  races  are  bringing  forth  a 
new  brood.  The  Irish,  for  the  first  time  in  their 
history,  are  having  a  just  opportunity  to  work  out 
their  destiny,  held  by  emulation  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  but  no  longer  driven  to  the  wall  by  their 
sheer  aggressive  force.  The  Jewish  race  has  an 
immemorial  record  as  the  prolific  mother  of  genius. 
The  Italian  strain  has  historically  outstripped  aU 
others  by  being  thrice  —  once  politically,  once 
religiously,  once  intellectually  —  the  dominating 
power  of  the  world.  Yet  it  is  almost  a  matter  of 
haphazard  whether  children  of  these  races  among 
us,  who  may  be  born  with  the  highest  order  of 
capacity,  do  not  have  the  spirit  within  them 
quenched  by  a  childhood  spent  in  dismal,  degrad- 
ing streets.  Even  after  such  capacity  has  begun 
distinctly  to  manifest  itseK,  we  are  content  often 
to  throw  it  away  by  not  making  unfailing  pro- 
vision for  necessary  training  and  apprenticeship. 
In  England  and  France  it  is  now  publicly  recog- 
nized as  essential  to  the  general  advancement  in 
wealth  and  welfare  that  the  education  of  specially 
capable  boys  and  girls  should  not  be  hindered  by 

1  Marshall :  Principles  of  Economics,  Vol.  I,  2d.  ed.,  p.  272. 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWORD     375 

such  an  adventitious  circumstance  as  the  poverty 
or  ignorance  of  the  parents.  There  could  hardly 
be  a  more  profitable  investment  of  public  funds 
than  by  the  establishment  of  scholarships  under 
which  the  successful  grammar  school  pupil,  other- 
wise kept  by  poverty  from  going  farther,  should 
have  the  opportunity  of  continuing  his  education 
along  academical  or  technical  lines,  until  he  had 
received  the  best  development  and  training  which 
his  talents  justified  and  the  community  could  sup- 

For  the  vast  majority  of  the  people  in  the  North 
and  West  Ends,  between  the  submerged  grades  at 
the  bottom  and  the  aristocracy  of  labor  at  the  top, 
the  sound  policy  is  to  encourage  and  mould  every 
helpful  form  of  association.  They  are  not,  on  the 
one  hand,  goaded  by  necessity,  nor  on  the  other 
incited  by  ambition.  They  constitute  the  working 
class  proper.  They  are  coUectivists  ;  and  loyalties 
of  various  kinds  are  the  determining:  forces  amons: 
them.  Indeed  the  whole  movement  of  present- 
day  society  makes  it  essential  that  they  should 
cling  together.  It  is  of  vital  consequence  to  all 
concerned,  however,  that  such  forms  of  attachment 
should  be  tempered  by  intelligence,  and  by  toler- 
ance toward  other  types  of  people  in  the  com- 
munity. 


376  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

Trade  unionism  is  indispensable  to  a  fair  stand- 
ard of  life  in  such  a  population.  Organization 
for  tlie  protection  of  wages  is  a  step  to  which  the 
more  recent  bodies  of  immigrants  may  well  be 
urged.  This  would  prevent  them  from  establish- 
ing for  themselves  and  tending  to  fix  for  others 
a  scale  of  living  which  is  deleterious  to  the  inter- 
ests and  prospects  of  the  city  and  the  nation.  A 
compact  and  enlightened  form  of  political  organi- 
zation among  the  more  recent  immigrants  will  be 
the  means  of  securing  them  such  individual  con- 
sideration as  they  need  from  public  authorities, 
and  will  teach  them  the  more  advantageous  as  well 
as  nobler  way  of  seeking  the  general  bettering  of 
the  local  life  rather  than  joining  in  a  scramble  for 
patronage  and  spoils. 

In  stimulating  such  organized  action,  as  well  as 
leavening  with  better  purposes  the  whole  local 
scheme  of  mutual  aid  in  the  home  and  of  friendly 
intercourse  in  the  neighborhood,  the  settlements 
and  other  similar  centres  play  an  increasingly  im- 
portant part.^  The  Roman  Catholic  churches,  which 

^  The  public  value  of  such  work  is  beg-inning  to  be  capable  of 
statistical  demonstration.  The  report  of  the  Institutions  Regis- 
tration Department  for  1901-2  shows  a  falling  o£B  in  juvenile 
arrests  of  from  twelve  to  twenty  per  cent,  throughout  the  city 
during  the  past  ten  years.  The  cause  of  this  improvement  is 
ascribed  tentatively  to  the  better  provision  for  special  cases  of 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWORD     377 

until  recently  have  kept  to  their  one  great  task  of 
direct  appeal  to  the  inner  personal  nature,  are 
catching  something  of  the  same  spirit.  Too  high 
praise  cannot  be  given  to  the  plan  of  the  newly- 
formed  North  End  Improvement  Association,  which 
was  orsranized  at  the  instance  of  some  of  their 
clergy,  and  includes  representatives  of  all  the  lead- 
ing agencies  for  social  improvement  in  the  district. 

In  the  training  of  the  mass  of  the  children, 
with  their  average  abilities,  there  is  profound  need 
of  instruction  directed  specifically  toward  their  best 
future  usefulness.  It  is  a  curious  anomaly  that 
the  public  school  should  send  its  pupils  forth  into 
the  world  presumably  to  earn  their  livelihood,  but 
with  no  training  for  any  sort  of  vocation.  Manual 
training  for  boys  and  domestic  instruction  for  girls 
are  being  introduced  under  the  stimulus  of  private 
philanthropic  enterprise.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
they  wiU  take  up  much  more  space  in  the  pubHc 
school  curriculum,  even  if  a  much  shorter  list  of 
studies  should  be  made  necessary  as  a  result. 

The  importance  of  industrial  education  is,  how- 
ever, coming  to  be  felt  by  all  observant  persons. 
The  vital   question  of   moral   education    remains 

neglected  and  dependent  children,  and  to  "  the  manifold  individ- 
ual and  associate  efforts  to  improve  the  environment  of  chil- 
dren and  to  direct  their  youthful  energy  within  law-abiding 
channels." 


378  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

strangely  in  abeyance.  It  cannot  long  remain  so  ; 
it  must  soon  become  a  burning  issue.  The  Roman 
Catholic  Cburcli  stands  alone  in  its  proper  insist- 
ence upon  such  education ;  but  by  maintaining 
separate  schools  it  serves  to  keep  alive  prejudices 
in  its  own  and  other  followings  which  injure  the 
cause  of  religion  as  well  as  the  cause  of  patriotism. 
The  time  must  come  when  the  public  school  author- 
ities must  make  it  possible  for  different  religious 
persuasions  to  provide  their  different  types  of  in- 
struction in  harmonious  relation  with  the  public 
school  system.  In  this  way  the  values  which  the 
Roman  Catholic  is  rightly  intent  upon  would  be 
secured,  while  the  dangers  wliich  the  Protestant 
rightly  fears  from  any  connection  of  Church  and 
State  would  be  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

Among  the  different  racial  types  found  in  the 
North  and  West  Ends,  there  are  two  which  pre- 
sent problems  that  are  exceptionally  difficult,  though 
hardly  at  all  involved  with  any  question  of  foreign 
immigration.  The  Negro  in  the  Northern  cities 
may,  in  time,  present  difficulties  comparable  to 
those  which  he  stands  for  in  some  of  the  agricul- 
tural regions  of  the  South.  So  far  as  the  slum  is 
to  be  a  permanency  in  Boston,  it  will  exist  in  a  chain 
of  black  neighborhoods,  each  having  a  penumbra 
formed  by  mixture  with  the  offscouring  of  other 


ASSIMILATION:    A   TWO-EDGED  SWORD     379 

races.  There  is  much  encouragement  to  be  found 
in  the  advance  made  by  many  colored  people  ;  but 
for  a  considerable  proportion  of  them,  as  against 
the  barriers  of  almost  ineradicable  race  prejudice, 
there  is  little  hopeful  prospect. 
f  The  lodging-house  population,  an  increasing 
mass  of  men  and  women  of  American  or  nearly 
related  origin,  without  the  restraint  of  family  ties, 
ground  in  the  highly  organized  machinery  of  great 
business  establishments,  the  men's  wages  lowered 
by  the  competition  of  the  women,  and  the  women 
hoping  to  marry  the  men  whose  incomes  they  have 
unwittingly  undermined,  constitute  a  situation  that 
seems  to  epitomize  the  industrial  and  moral  com- 
plications of  city  life.  Some  slight  efforts  are 
being  made  to  make  good  the  peculiar  social  depri- 
vations of  these  people ;  such  efforts  must  be  greatly 
increased.  The  state  of  things  is  likely,  however, 
to  be  worse  before  it  is  better ;  and  real  improve- 
ment must  await  certain  changes  in  the  underlying 
causes  which  produce  it.  The  sentiments  of  people 
generally  must  be  altered  with  regard  to  the  desira- 
bility of  mercantile  employment  as  against  skilled 
manual  work ;  and  there  must  be  a  less  regard  for 
appearance  in  the  establishment  of  home  life. 

The  time  has  hardly  yet  arrived  for  any  safe 
estimate  of  the  psychological  traits  which  the  dif- 


^380  AMEBICANS  IN  PROCESS 

ferent  immigrant  nationalities  will  contribute  to 
tlie  future  type  of  Boston  citizen.-  Amalgama- 
tion has  hardly  yet  begun.  It  is  clear  enough, 
however,  that  they  are,  each  in  its  different  way, 
making  valuable  contributions  to  the  city's  eco- 
nomic and  moral  weKare.; 

The  Irish,  holding  to  Celtic  clan  traditions,  ad- 
vance in  a  body.  Their  progress  is  slow,  but  quite 
general.  The  North  and  West  Ends  contain  a 
considerable  number  of  them  who  have  proved 
incapable  of  rising,  but  throughout  the  city  their 
steady  ascent  in  the  scale  of  well-being  is  one  of 
I  the  obvious  facts  of  the  city's  life.  It  is  true  that 
j  as  voters  many  of  the  Irish  can  hardly  be  said  as 
i  yet  to  be  Americanized.  To  an  observer  situated 
so  as  to  measure  subtle  changes  in  their  social 
standards,  a  higher  type  of  pubhc  spirit  is  clearly 
seen  to  be  spreading  among  them.  Such  progress 
will  be  more  rapid  when  public  spirit  among  the 
native  population  inclines  to  seek  the  cooperation 
of  the  best  leaders  among  the  Irish  in  making  the 
city  government  more  fully  serve  the  local  public 
needs  of  the  more  congested  wards.  In  the  matter 
of  liquor  drinking,  the  past  few  years  have  wit- 
nessed a  distinct  veering  of  sentiment  on  the  part  of 
many  Irish  citizens,  and  the  Irish  clergy  in  Boston 
are  fast  coming  into  line  for  organized  opposition 


ASSIMILATION :    A  TWO-EDGED  SWORD     381 

to  the  saloon.  The  beneficial  results  of  such  a 
change  of  attitude  among  the  leaders  of  the  Irish 
population  will  be  inconceivably  great. 

In  the  North  and  West  Ends,  within  a  few  years 
the  last  signs  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Irish  must 
pass  away,  and  there  will  be  only  degraded  rem- 
nants of  them  left  stranded  in  odd  nooks  and 
corners.  The  North  End,  so  far  as  the  encroach- 
ments of  trade  allow  it  to  continue  as  a  place  of 
abode,  is  to  be  an  Italian  stronghold.  The  West 
End  will  pass  quite  fully  into  the  possession  of  the 
Jews.  The  more  progressive  members  of  both 
nationalities  will  gradually  leave  these  colonies 
and  scatter  themselves  throughout  the  city  and 
suburbs.  Thus  bereft,  and  not  being  so  much 
under  the  observation  of  people  of  other  types, 
there  will  be  danger  in  both  colonies  of  a  relapse. 
The  baser  sort  among  the  Italians  will  feel  them- 
selves under  less  restraint  against  deeds  of  disorder 
and  violence.  Many  of  the  Jews  will  inclose  them- 
selves in  an  inhuman  sordidness.  The  violence  is 
no  greater  evil  than  the  sordidness ;  there  will  be 
need  of  penetrating  measures  against  both.  It  is 
impossible  to  doubt,  however,  that  each  colony  in 
its  characteristic  way  will  maintain  a  predominantly 
worthy  character.  In  both  there  will  be  a  high 
degree  of   industry,  sobriety  and  domestic  peace. 


382  AMERICANS  IN  PROCESS 

In  one  the  goal  of  effort  will  be  prosperity ;  in  the 
other  the  simple  joys  of  life.  There  is  already 
ground  for  hope  that  many  of  the  enterprising 
spirits,  who  leave  their  immigrant  neighborhoods 
for  the  larger  theatre  of  the  city's  activity,  will 
find  satisfaction  in  seeking  the  welfare  and  pro- 
gress of  the  local  communities  in  which  they  and 
their  countrymen  were  introduced  to  the  ways  of 
American  citizenship. 

The  immigrant  nationalities  are  abeady  adding 
variety  and  fresh  impulse  to  the  city's  industrial 
and  social  interests.  It  is  essential  that  the  estab- 
lished civilization  of  Boston  should  much  more 
fuUy  lay  hold  upon  the  body  of  feelings  and  tradi- 
tions which  are  represented  at  the  North  and  West 
Ends;  The  motive  should  be  to  have  them  affected 
by  the  American  spirit,  but  also  to  have  the  Amer- 
ican spirit  affected  by  what  is  real  in  them.  The 
loyal  American,  honoring  and  seeking  to  preserve 
much  in  the  genius  of  each  nationality,  will  thus 
stimulate  each  racial  type  to  seek  for  what  is 
worthy  in  all  the  others. 

There  is  a  growing  conviction  that  democracy  is 
not  merely  a  political  system,  but  an  ethical  philo- 
sophy. In  either  view  it  requires  for  its  existence 
a  large  measure  of  social  coherence.  This  must  not 
be  of  the  nature  of  a  formless  solidarity,  but  must 


ASSIMILATION:  A   TWO-EDGED  SWOBD     383 

provide  for  the  perspective  that  comes  of  having 
genuine  identity  in  every  type  of  mind  and  char- 
acter, and  in  every  form  of  association  which  men 
make  on  the  basis  of  their  heredity,  their  work, 
their  recreation,  their  moral  ideals.  The  political 
framework  of  the  country  is  a  federal  union,  estab- 
lished in  sacrifice,  preserved  at  an  appalling  cost. 
In  an  equally  profound  sense,  the  better  social  order 
in  which  the  American  life  of  the  future  will  be 
gathered  up  must  be  a  federal  unipn  also.   ) 


INDEX 


Adams,  Samttel,  26. 

Agricultural  work,  118. 

Aldermen,  Board  of,  169. 

Alleys.  See  Streets  and  alleys. 

Almshouse,  City.  See  Boston, 
Pauper  Trustees. 

Americanization,  50,  61  ft.,  253  ;  of 
children  291  f.,  317  ff.  See  Na- 
tionalities, Immigration. 

Americans,  42  f. 

Amusements,  Chap.  viii.  See  Na- 
tionalities. 

Ann  Pollard,  12. 

Arrests,  North  End,  190  ff.,  196, 
202  f.  ;  West  End,  211  f.,  220  f. 
See  Crime,  Police. 

Art  galleries,  236. 

Artisans  and  mechanics,  Colonial, 
14, 16, 17, 27,  29 ;  Irish,  121 ;  Ital- 
ian, 117 ;  Jewish,  117 ;  Portu- 
guese, 122;  Statistics  of.  See 
Assessors'  list. 

Assessors'  list,  135  f. 

Associated  Charities,  326  f .,  329  fif. 

Banks  and  bankers,  111,  119  f. 

Barbers,  122  f. 

Baron  de  Hirsch  Fund.  See  Jew- 
ish Charities. 

Baths,  at  North  End  Union,  349 ; 
public,  365 ;  school,  300. 

Beacon  Hill,  13. 

Better  Dwellings  Society,  86. 

Blackstone,  first  settler,  11,  22. 
See  Streets. 

Boarding  houses,  38  f.,  140.  See 
Lodging  houses. 

Bootblacks,  lis. 

Boss,  political,  151  ff.,  171,  177,  359 
f.    See  Political  types. 

Boston,  Almshouse,  127, 330 ;  Com- 
mon, 1,  37;  Cooperative  Build- 
ing Co.,  81,  339  f. ;  Health  Act, 
82 ;  House  of  Correction,  127 ; 


incorporation  of,  73;  Island  of 
Boston,  12,  35. 

Bowdoin  Square,  21,  28,  36. 

Bowling  Green.  See  Bowdoin 
Square. 

British-Americans,  political  tem- 
per of,  65. 

Building  Company,  Boston  Co- 
operative. See  Boston. 

Buildings.  See  Legislation,  Tene- 
ments. 

Burglary.  See  Crime. 

Carpet-baggers,  162, 166. 

Catholicism,  compared  with  Juda- 
ism, 282  ff. ;  Irish  and  Italian 
compared,  273  ff. ;  Portuguese, 
275 ;  methods  of,  376. 

Caucus,  methods,  165  ff. ;  nomina- 
tion papers,  163.  See  Parties, 
Politics. 

Cellars,  78,  82,  84  f.,  98  f. 

Census.    See  Population. 

Charity,  Chap.  xi.  See  Philan- 
thropy. 

Charlesbank.  See  Parks  and  Play- 
grounds. 

Child  Labor,  118, 125  f.,  306. 

Children,  Chap.  x. ;  training  of, 
industrial,  299  ff.,  377 ;  moral,  300, 
377  f.  See  Child  labor.  Philan- 
thropy. 

Children's  Aid  Society,  334  f. ; 
Home  libraries,  350. 

Churches,  Catholic,  Chap,  ix.: 
North  End,  St.  Mary's,  267  ff. ; 
St.  Stephen's,  268  ff.;  Sacred 
Heart,  271  f. ;  St.  Leonard's,  270 
f. ;  West  End,  St.  Joseph's,  269. 
See  Catholicism,  Eeligious 
work. 

Churches,  Jewish,  Baldwin  Place, 
276 ;  Smith's  Court,  276. 

Churches,  Protestant,  Chap,  ix.: 


386 


INDEX 


North  End,  Baptist,  254  ;  Christ, 
254  f. ;  Congregational,  257  ; 
Italian,  257;  Methodist,  256; 
New  Brick,  254;  Old  North, 
254,  see  Mathers;  West  End, 
Baptist  Tabernacle,  265;  Bul- 
finch  Place,  263  ;  Charles  Street 

;  Methodist,  258;  First  Metho- 
dist, 262  f. ;  Eeformed  Presbyte- 
rian, 262 ;  Revere  Street  Metho- 
dist, 258 ;  St.  Andrew's,  264  f. ;  St. 
Augustine's,  259;  St.  John  the 
Evangelist's,  262 ;  Twelfth  Bap- 
tist, 258  ;  West  Church,  258  ; 
Zion  Methodist,  258.  See  Pro- 
testantism, Religious  work. 

City  Council,  362  f. 

City  Hall,  363, 

Civic  Service  House,  348.  See 
Jews. 

Civil  Service,  154, 170  f. 

Clerks,  123, 134  ff.    See  Shops. 

Clubs  and  gangs,  political,  155, 
184;  social,  Negro,  249;  school 
graduate,  305, 343  f. 

Confectioners,  122, 124. 

Contractors,  122. 

Copp's  Hill,  13, 16,  27. 

Corporations,  employment  by, 
121 ;  power  of,  361  f. 

Crime,  Chap.  vii. ;  at  North  End, 
207  ;  at  West  End,  213  1,  221  ; 
statistics  of,  146, 190, 209 ;  treat- 
ment of,  371.  See  Arrests, 
Drunkenness,  Gambhng,  Mur- 
der, Police,  Prostitution. 

Dance  halls,  192  ff. 

Day  nurseries,  335  f . 

Death  rate,  74.    See  Disease. 

Democracy,  essentials  of,  382; 
limitations  of,  357. 

Dependent  classes,  135.  See 
Charity,  Philanthropy. 

Disease,  72  f.,  75  ff.,  93  ff.  See  Death 
rate. 

Dock  Square,  14, 18. 

Docks,  2. 

Dorchester,  Democratic  party, 
360 ;  political  problem  of,  361 ; 
Republicans,  359. 

Drunkenness,  380.  See  Arrests, 
Crime. 

Dwellings,  earher,  Chap.  ii. ;  mod- 
ern, see  Lodging  houses,  Tene- 
ments. 

Education,  Chap.  x.    See  also  144. 
Elizabeth  Peabody  House,  350. 


Endicott,  John,  19. 
Epidemics.    See  Disease. 
Epworth  League  House,  337, 348. 
Estabrook,  H.  K.,  87. 
Evening  schools.    See  Schools. 

Factories,  105, 124. 
Faneuil  Hall,  28. 
Ferry,  46 ;  earUest,  17. 
Fires,  18. 
Firelighters,  282. 
Fort  Hill,  13,  35,  80. 
Frankland,  Sir  Harry,  25. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  26. 
Fruit  dealers,  107  f.,  120. 

Gambling,  202,  204   ff.,  220.    See 

Crime. 
Gardens,  21,  27. 
Garment  trades,  106,  110, 115  ff., 

133  f.,  157  f. 
Gaston,  Mayor,  79. 
Government,  colonial,  18 ;  crown, 

18  f. 
Grammar  schools,  importance  of, 

293,    304,     307,     314,    319.       See 

Schools. 
Great  Cove,  12  f.,  15,  35. 
Greeks,  313 ;  industries  of,  122. 
Grocery  trade,  108. 
Gymnasiums,     at     North     End 

Union,  349 ;  public,  351  ff.,  365. 

Hancock,  John,  26. 

Hanover  St.,  14, 289. 

Health,  Board  of,  8,  73  f.,  78  f. ; 
powers  of,  82,  88 ;  recommenda- 
tions of,  102  f . ;  reports  of,  86, 93. 

Hebrew  Benevolent  Society.  See 
Jewish  Charities. 

Hebrew  Industrial  School,  347. 

High  schools,  296,  308.  See 
Schools. 

Home  libraries,  350.  See  Chil- 
dren's Aid  Society. 

Hospitals,  City,  337 ;  Epworth 
League,  337 ;  House  of  the  Good 
Samaritan,  336;  Lying-in,  336; 
Mass.  Charitable  Eye  and  Ear 
Infirmary,  337 ;  Mass.  General, 
336 ;  Mt.  Sinai,  337 ;  St.  Monica's, 
336 ;  Vincent  Memorial  Hospital, 
336. 

Hotels,  120  ;  loss  of  license,  197  f. ; 
West  End,  216,  221.  See  Li- 
censes, Restaurants,  Saloons. 

Hours  of  labor,  133  f. 

Housing,  model,  339  f. ;  problem  of, 
74  f.,  103.    See  Disease,  Lodging- 


INDEX 


387 


\^^ 


\  ^ 


bouses,    Overcrowding,    Tene- 
ments. 
Hull,  John,  19. 

Immigrants,  limited  opportuni- 
ties of,  357,  373. 

Immigration,  5,  7,  34, 41  ff. ;  better 
class  of,  195  ;  causes  of,  46  fC, ; 
protection  of  immigrants,  119 ; 
results  of,  7  f.,  146,  199,  382. 

Incomes,  137. 

Industrial  Aid  Society,  338. 

Industrial  training,  299  fl.,  349, 
377. 

Industries,  Chap.  v. ;  list  of,  136  f. 

Institutions,  Itegistration  Depart- 
ment Report,  376,  footnote. 

Irish,  41  flf.,  56 ;  development  of, 
379  f. ;  festivals,  250;  genius  of, 
374  ;  mode  of  life,  70 ;  political 
temper,  63, 159. 

Italians,  44,  46 ff.;  benefit  socie- 
ties, 331,  343  ;  characteristics, 
117,  143,  199,  204,  214,  224  ff. ; 
genius,  374;  development,  58, 
380 ;  festivals,  228  ff.,  284 ;  mode 
of  life,  52,  70,  83, 139  ff. ;  political 
temper,  64  f.,  157  f.,  162 ;  children, 
290,  312  ;  women,  234. 

Jewelers,  ill. 

Jewish  Charities,  Federation  of, 
328. 

Jews,  benefit  orders,  343 ;  charac- 
teristics, 67  ff.,  108,  142  ff.,  199  ff., 
205,  209  f.,  237;  children,  290, 
312 ;  development,  57,  301 ;  fes- 
tivals, 239,  278  ff. ;  genius,  374  ; 
landlords,  113, 174, 341 ;  mode  of 
life,  53  ff.,  70,  137,  238  ;  political 
temper,  63  f.,  157, 162. 

Judaism,  276  ff. ;  compared  with 
Catholicism.  282  ff. ;  festivals, 
239,  278,  280,  282  ;  synagogues, 
276. 

Junlc  shops,  109  f.,  157  f. 

Juvenile  lawbrealcers,  decrease 
of,  376,  footnote. 

Kindergartens,  291 ;  North  Bennet 
S t.,  346.  See  Elizabeth  Peabody 
House. 

Kitchen  bar-rooms.  See  Saloons. 

Labor,  Statistics,  84  f.  See  La- 
borers, Unemployed. 

Laborers,  118, 121  f.,  126  ff.,371 ;  un- 
skilled, 134  ff.,  299,  342.  See 
Labor,  Unemployed. 


Land  deals,  political,  172  f. 

Landlords,  Jewish.    See  Jews. 

Legislation,  building,  100 f. ;  moral, 
8  f.,  82, 88  ;  sanitary,  7  f.,  73,  82  f. 
88  f.,  99,  101,  365. 

Leopold  Morse  Home.  See  Jew- 
ish charities. 

Licenses,  liquor,  173,  197,  200  f. 
See  Hotels,  Saloons. 

Liquor  traffic.  See  Hotels,  Li- 
censes, Saloons. 

Little  Italy,  3. 

Lodging  houses,  39,  56  f.,  93,140; 
Social  influence  of,  379.  See 
Boarding  houses. 

Manufacturing.  See  Factories. 
Markets,  2 ;   great,  107  ;  Jewish, 

108,  111,  141 ;  political  boycott  of, 

173. 
Marshall,  Thomas,  17, 19. 
Massachusetts    Emergency   and 

Hygiene  Association,  353. 
Mathers,  clergymen,  16, 25. 
Medical  relief,  336  ff. 
Merchants,  136. 
Middlemen,  223. 
Mill    Creek,    formation    of,   15; 

water  cut  off  of,  35;  drainage 

into,  72. 
Mill  Pond,  formation  of,  15 ;  filled 

in,  35. 
Murder,  207  ff.    See  Crime. 

Nationalities.  See  American,  Brit- 
ish, Greeks,  Irish,  Italians, 
Jews,  Negroes,  Portuguese, 
Scandinavian,  Syrian.  Also 
Assimilation,  Population,  Immi- 
gration. 

Naturalization,  161. 

Negroes,  4,  37, 45  ;  benefit  orders, 
332 ;  characteristics,  60, 142, 248 ; 
churches,  258 ;  mode  of  life,  55, 
70, 140 ;  occupations,  123 ;  recrea- 
tions, 248  ;  political  temper,  66, 
160;  vicious  class,  21 7  f. 

North  Bennet  Street  Industrial 
School,  301,  345. 

North  End,  Chap.  ii. ;  boundaries 
and  thoroughfares,  1  ff.,  14,  20  f., 
31 ;  character,  2  ff.,222  ;  growth, 
16  ff. ;  labor  force,  357 ;  moral  de- 
cline and  recovery,  33  f.,  193  ff. 

North  End  Improvement  Associa- 
tion, 354,  377. 

North  End  Park,  182,  351. 

North  End  Union,  349. 

North  Square,  16, 18,  24. 


888 


INDEX 


North  St.,  14. 

Organ  grinders,  135, 226  f. 

Overcrowding,  7,  52  ff.,  80,  83, 139  ; 
prevention  of,  93,  99;  protest 
against,  76;  statistics  of,  84  f., 
96  f.    See  Legislation. 

Overseers  of  the  Poor,  324,  371. 

Padrones,  113, 119. 

Parlis  and  playgrounds,  90,  103, 
351  ff.,365. 

Parochial  schools,  273, 309  ff. 

Parties,  political.  Chap.  vi. ;  affili- 
ations to,  158  fl.,  167  ;  candi- 
dates of,  162;  loyalty  to,  169; 
nominations  of,  162 ;  organiza- 
tion of,  154  fiE.,  163  f.,  168  f. 

Pauperism,  causes  of,  333.  See 
Dependent  classes. 

Pauper  Trustees,  324. 

Pawnshops,  109. 

Peddlers,  108  ff.,  135, 157  f. 

Philanthropy,  Chap,  xi.;  allied 
action,  354  f. ;  child  relief  work, 
335  ff. ;  division  of  labor,  329; 
private  relief  work,  7  f.,  326  ff. ; 
public  relief  9,  324  f. ;  statistics 
of  relief,  330  ff. ;  three  forms  of 
relief,  321  f. 

Phips,  Governor,  19. 

Police,  Div.  l,  190,  196;  Div.  2, 
211 :  intervention,  192, 196  f.,  222 
f. 

Politics,  ward,  Chap.  vi. ;  147  ff. ; 
as  a  career,  357  f. ;  carpet  bag- 
gers, 162,  166 ;  clubs  and  gangs, 
155,  184 ;  fraudulent  registra- 
tion, 166  ff. ;  land  deals,  172  f. ; 
leaders  and  methods,  151  fl., 
157  f.,  161, 165, 169  ff.,  177  ;  natu- 
ralization, 161 ;  non-resident 
voters,  161 ;  quarrels,  178 ;  ral- 
lies, 164  f. ;  woman  influence,  177. 
See  Americanization,  Caucus, 
Political  corruption,  Political 
types. 

Political  corruption,  358,  361  f. 

Political  types,  179  ff.,  183  ff. 

Population,  early,  chap  ii. ;  recent, 
chap.  iii. ;  growth  in,  76,  95  fl. 

Porter,  Dwight,  83. 

Portuguese,  45 ;  characteristics  of, 
59,  122,  140  ;  mode  of  life,  245 ; 
festivals,  247 ;  societies,  247. 

Professions,  124, 136  f. 

Prostitution,  9,  57, 197  f. ;  Italian, 
213  fl.,  Negro,  218,    See  Crime. 

Protestantism,  257,  267  f. ;  a  class 
religion,  364 ;  inadequacy,  370. 


Public  library,  346, 353. 
Public  School  Association,  368. 
Public  spirit,  6  ff.,  88,  101,  223,  300, 

366  ff. 
Puritan  Society,  13  ff. ;  change 

from,  18  ff. 

Qulncy,  first  mayor,  73,  89  ;  third 
mayor,  188. 

Kallies,  political,  164  f. 

Reading-rooms,  314,  346. 

Real  estate,  business,  112  f.,  117 ; 
owners  of,  121.  See  Building, 
Housing. 

Registration,  166  ff. 

Religious  cleavage,  363. 

Religious  observance,  chap.  Ix., 
144. 

Religious  work,  Catholic,  Sunday- 
schools,  272  f.  See  Churches, 
Parochial  schools. 

Religious  work,  Protestant,  Bible 
readers,  257;  Mariners'  House, 
256;  Salvation  Army,  257,  266. 
See  Churches,  Protestantism. 

Rents,  138. 

Restaurants,  142. 

Revere,  Paul,  25  f.,  30. 

Revolution,  30  ;  landmarks  of,  5; 
pre-Revolutionary  life,  11-29. 

Ropewalks,  21  f.,  128. 

Sabbath  observance,  280. 

Sailors,  45, 127,  255  f. 

Salem  Street,  14. 

Saloons,  at  West  End,  221 ;  Ital- 
ian, 106  f.,  140,  201  f.;  kitchen 
bar-rooms.  See  Hotels,  Licenses. 

Sanitation.  Chap.  Iv. ;  moral  ef- 
fects of,  218.  See  Disease, 
Housing,  Legislation,  Over- 
crowding, Tenements. 

Scandinavians,  122. 

Scholarships,  375. 

School  buildings,  use  of,  313, 365  f. 

Schools,  Chap.  x. ;  Bowdoin,  38 ; 
Eliot,  27,  302 ;  English  High,  38, 
181 ;  evening,  311  ff.  ;  Girls' 
High,  38 ;  Hancock,  302 ;  "  Latin 
Grammar,"  27;  Mayhew,  33. 
See  Grammar,  High,  Parochial 
schools. 

School  statistics,  297  f. 

Scollay  Square,  1. 

Settlements,  348  fl.,  376. 

Sewall,  Samuel,  23. 

Sewerage,  71  fl.,  74,  76,  82,  87,  99. 

Sex  disproportion,  51  f. 


INDEX 


389 


Shipyards,  27. 

Shops,  106,  110  f.,  122,  132;  Shop- 
keepers, 136. 

Slums,  growth,  82,  88 ;  social  con- 
dition, 356. 

Socialism,  342  f. 

Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Children,  335. 

Society  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  328, 
335. 

Society  for  the  Protection  of 
Italian  Immigrants,  347. 

Stamp  Savings  Society,  351. 

State  House,  37. 

Station,  North  Union,  1  ff. 

Stores,  106, 125. 

Streets,  colonial.    Chap.  ii. 

Streets  and  alleys,  3, 90, 93, 218  ff. ; 
widening  of,  102. 

Street  cleaning,  72,  74. 

Surriage,  Agnes,  25. 

Sunday  observance,  133.  See 
Sabbath. 

Sweating,  113  ff. 

Syrians,  109. 

Taverns,  23, 27. 
Temporary  Home,  325. 
Tenements,  34,  39,  100 ;  improved, 

80  ff.,  89  ff. ;  investigation  of,  83 

ff.,  98,  102 ;  past  state  of,  77  f. ; 

present  state  of,  90  f.,  97  fl.,  139. 

See  Housing,  Legislation,  Over 

crowding. 


Theatres,  144, 217, 232  f.,  244,  251  f. 
See  Amusements. 

Trade  Unions,  341,  376. 

Tramps,  46,  123,  371.  See  Unem- 
ployed. 

Twentieth  Century  Club,  investi- 
gations of,  87  f. ;  petition  of,  101. 

Unemployed,  123,  126  ff.,  136, 170. 

See  Tramps,  Laborers. 
Unskilled.    See  LaborerSo 

Ventilation,  74, 82  f.,  91  f.,  97  f.,  101. 
Voters,  non-resident,  161. 

Wadlin,  H.  G.,  84. 

Wages,  116, 129  ff.,  137  f. 

Water-closets,  77,  83,  92,  98  f. 

Water-side  industries,  127.  See 
Sailors. 

Water  supply,  72  f.,  76, 

Wayfarers'  Lodge,  325,  332,  338  f. 

West  End,  boundaries  and  thor- 
oughfares, 1, 3, 11,  28,  32  f .,  212  f. ; 
character  of,  2  ff.,  213  f.,  222; 
labor  force,  357;  moral  dechne 
and  recovery,  35  fif.,  212  t; 
Police  Div.  3,211. 

Women,  occupations  of,  118, 122 
fif. ;  political  influence  of,  157, 
177  ;  relief  work  for,  339. 

Words  coined  in  Boston,  26 

Zionism,  281. 


Electrotyfed  and  printed  by  H.  O.  Hojighton  &'  Co. 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


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